Today in “Stuff Settlers Said” we will look at the language
of fashion.
http://www.lavendersgreen.com/Early19th.htm
“Man, the mechanic did some slip-shod service on my car!” It’s
easy to understand that slip shod means less than satisfactory here. I always
thought it came from the equine industry, some kind of horseshoeing term.
Evidently not! In earlier times well dressed women wore dainty shoes that were
fabric or a thin leather called slippers. (Remember Cinderella’s glass
slipper?) When it was muddy out doors they wore pattens over their slipper to
keep their feet out of the mud. A patten was a wooden platform set upon a metal
ring. Only a hasty, sloppy woman would run out side just slipper-shod!
Slip-shod came to mean something done hastily and in a careless way.
http://echostains.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/the-patter-of-tiny-feet-in-pattens-take-a-walk-on-the-wild-side/
Giving tours with Historic Connersville Inc. has caused me
to look a little closer into the everyday lives of folks from past times. One
of the things I ALWAYS comment on is the fact that I would have died either
from the heat, or just toppling over in my corset had I been subjected to that!
The thought of being tightly cinched up under layers and layers of clothes just
makes me want to run away screaming! Straitlaced is a term that comes from the
practice of corseting. When you are properly laced up – all nice and strait
back there – you really cannot get into too much mischief. No running through
fields, or up and down stairs, even a heated argument is about impossible to
accomplish when the air has been all but squeezed out of your lungs. Also,
there just is not too much bending that can go on in a corset without pain.
Being straitlaced became an expression for someone that did not bend the rules.
http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/reflections/winter2008/maternity_corset.html
Now we have all heard this one: to pull the wool over his
eyes. It means to play a prank or fool someone. How could anyone pull the wool
over another’s eyes? Well if they were wearing a wool wig, as was the custom
for some men of importance, and the wig was woolen! Most of the powdered wigs
we see in portraits of the time were made of wool. I am sure there were plenty
of pranksters that delighted in knocking the wig down over someone’s head.
Sounds like a ten year old boys kind of prank to me. Maybe it was a little
juvenile in nature too?
http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/earth-regency-11_1998-2015/
Today we all have at least one pair of jeans in our closets.
They became the working man’s choice of pants. Since the late 1700’s Americans
have been wearing our favorite pants. They were durable and a heck of a lot more
comfortable than wool pants. Jeans traditionally were made from denim. Denim is
taken from the French city where Americans first heard of them – Nimes (De’Nimes
– from or of Nimes). The name jeans comes from the Italian city where they were
first made – Genoa (Genes). The fabric was originally called Serge De’Nimes and
was manufactured by the Andre Family. And we thought the French weren’t all
that helpful to the American cause all these years!
http://www.worksandwonder.com/2012/01/book-review-histoire-du-jeans-de-1750.html
My daughter gets “a bee in her bonnet” at least once a day.
She is an emotional little girl to say the least! Where did that expression
come from? Well women, and girls wore bonnets a lot back in the day. It was a
good way to keep the sun, wind and dust off your head. When it would get too
warm in there though, off the bonnet would go pushed off the back and hanging
by the ties down her back. Many times a bee would get in there and when she
would put the bonnet back on, well - what a commotion! Its the same way with my
daughter – what a commotion!
http://rfgblog.maryjanesfarm.org/Archive/default.asp?Year=2011&Month=05
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