From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   "As the Company grew in India and other territories,...the impact of   
   trade on English vocabulary was enormous."   
      
   Crystal read a lot of cargo lists from the British Library, for an   
   exhibition/book called "Evolving English" (2010).   
   Most of the items are names of fabrics (cotton, linen, silk) "and most   
   of the names are now obsolescent, familiar only to textile historians."   
      
   He lists 37 from a particular group of five ships which returned from   
   India in July 1724. The only ones I (no textile historian) recognize   
   are: Chints, Ginghams, Seersuckers and Taffaties.   
      
   Note that Chints, like the others, is a plural (Hindi chīnt). For some   
   reason this fabric has been reanalyzed as a mass noun, now spelled chintz.   
      
   These are not first occurrences, which go back at least a century   
   earlier. Seersucker and taffeta are ultimately from Persian; gingham   
   looks a bit English, but is not; it was though to be from Malay via   
   Portuguese, but per OED this is now unlikely.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)