police

[fanny01]

Where does the word 'rozzer' come from?

[Quizmonster]

Nobody knows. According to The Oxford English Dictionary - the 'bible' in such matters - the origin is unknown. If the scholars at TOED have failed to come up with a source, you can count on it that any such explanation anyone offers here is just folk etymology.

[perky72]

i think it's because a rozzer is a bacon crisp, a bit like razzles(?) Bacon-pig-police

[Quizmonster]

There are various stories as to how crisps came to be invented, one of these being that a man dining in a restaurant in the USA in the 19th century kept sending his fried potatoes back to the kitchen because thay were too fatty/soggy. The chef kept cutting them more thinly until the customer was satisfied. Believe that if you like!
What is sure, however, is that 'flavoured' crisps are a much more recent creation. Given that the earliest recorded appearance of the word 'rozzer' to mean 'policeman' was in the 1890s...long before bacon-flavoured crisps existed...there is no chance that that is the word's source.
Folk etymology is alive and well still!

[spudqueen]

Quizmonster - maybe perky72 meant the rind of real bacon which when grilled becomes lovely and crisp, in fact I used to call them crispys.

[Quizmonster]

Were that the case, Spudqueen, surely Perky would have written 'crisp(y) bacon' rather than 'a bacon crisp'.

[SLUGGER.U.K]

I think it comes from the street in "London" {spelt dump} called Rozermond street that the original "Peelers" were based {peelers being the original policemen of the day} Named after Sir Robert Peel the man who invented the police and not Sting the bloke who many people think did !! {Im confused..Im going now}