In the new lexicon, phorget `f'; `ph' now takes the kake.

Byline: Charles Storch

Not so phast.

Perfectly good English words are getting a meaning makeover when their beginning letter "f" is substituted with "ph." Think of "phat," "phishing" and "phood" and you might wonder what the "ph" is going on.

To make it more vexing, there seems no common explanation for the respellings.

"Phat," meaning very good, excellent or sexy, is said to be African-American argot dating to at least 1963, although some late to the party have made a vulgar acronym of it.

"Phishing" used to mean attending a concert by the band Phish (a name possibly derived from that of band member Jon Fishman). But more recently it is being used for an Internet scam that tries to bait people into giving out passwords, credit card numbers and other personal data. It apparently harkens to "phone phreaking," a form of hacking that targeted telephone companies in the 1970s.

"Phood" is rather new (or "phresh," in hip-hop lexicon). It describes nutritionally enhanced products and is an amalgam of "pharmaceutical" and "food" _ as is "pharming" for agriculture's brave new world.