WTF... Bob's your uncle...

[Tigers!]

I am doubtful about the word copper having anything to do with uniform buttons, which would have been brass; more plausibly it is a corruption of (or shares a latin common root with) 'capture'.

'to cop' meaning 'to take' is common usage in the UK - for example 'cop a butchers at that' meaning 'take a look at that'; or 'cop a feel', meaning 'take a feel' (usually in reference to the breasts of one's chosen sexual partner, and with a vague overtone of the absence of consent 'She was pissed as a newt*, so I took the opportunity to cop a feel'). One who takes would therefore be a 'Copper' - although to my knowledge, nobody refers to the one taken as a 'Copee'

My grandfather (whose's family has many run-ins with the coppers in Collingwood, Melbourne in the 20-30s: SP bookies they were) told me that 'cop' was short for Constable On patrol

 

[Zeluvia]

That sounds best Tigers!. I find this stuff fascinating. I think I missed my career

If you think about it one way, this is one of the most powerful influence individuals have on the masses; the invention of a new slang or usage that makes it way into the general language and sometimes just stays there, uncredited and with a murky history.

But someone somewhere used it first.

 

[4321lynx]

We get "drunk as a skunk," which is our own rhyming slang. The term for angry is "pissed off," usually shortened to "pissed." We have a saying, "It's better to be pissed off, than pissed on," which means get mad instead of sitting there and enduring it.

The Poms (and Aussies) use 'pissed off'; but we don't shorten it to 'pissed' because that word is taken.

"I was really pissed last night" and "I was really pissed off last night" are both very common usages in England, but the former is likely to result from drinking 15 pints of strong ale, while the latter is likely to result from someone jumping the queue at the taxi rank.

And if the queue jumper was Canadian and you said something to him about it,he might tell you to go piss up a rope, an expression which I liked instantly when I first heard it here. Is it used in the USA too?

 

[Bronzeage]

We get "drunk as a skunk," which is our own rhyming slang. The term for angry is "pissed off," usually shortened to "pissed." We have a saying, "It's better to be pissed off, than pissed on," which means get mad instead of sitting there and enduring it.

The Poms (and Aussies) use 'pissed off'; but we don't shorten it to 'pissed' because that word is taken.

"I was really pissed last night" and "I was really pissed off last night" are both very common usages in England, but the former is likely to result from drinking 15 pints of strong ale, while the latter is likely to result from someone jumping the queue at the taxi rank.

Anyone who drinks 15 pints of strong ale is not jumping anything until he's pissed.