The Bill

[Cheesefreek]

Does anyone know why the police are know as the bill, the fuzz or the rozzers?

[Quizmonster]

Here's one possibility...during World War I, the cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather created a popular character called 'Old Bill'. He was a grumbling veteran soldier with a large moustache. In the 1930s - perhaps because many ex-soldiers had become policemen - the name became attached to the Metropolitan Police.
It has to be said that the Metropolitan Police themselves have a website - click here - that offers a whole raft of other possible explanations. If they don't know for sure...who does?

If you click here the link will take you to the website of the noted etymologist and lexicographer, Michael Quinion. His view on �Old Bill' certainly seems to be that Bairnsfather's cartoon character is the original source, as he does not even give house-room to any of the other supposed possibilities.

[Quizmonster]

One of the earliest written uses of the word �fuzz' to mean �the police' was in a dictionary called 'American Tramp & Underworld Slang' published in the USA in 1931. There, it was suggested that it came from 'fuss', a name for anyone who was over-particular or hard to please. "Ooh, you're such a fuss!" Obviously tramps and �baddies' would see policemen in that way! Really, therefore, if you use the word in this way, you're basically just calling them �fusspots'. That may not be quite the hard-man image you're trying to convey!

[Quizmonster]

As for 'rozzers', The Oxford English Dictionary (TOED) says the origin of the word is unknown. If the scholars at TOED don't know...nobody does!

[Cheesefreek]

Quizmonster - what brilliant answers. Thanks so much for your help.