Beauing Around

Our Creative Fellow has been doing a deep research dive into a book that we all love: the Linguistic Atlas of New England, a multi-volume title documenting regional accents and dialects in New England circa 1931-1933. Researchers visited 213 communities and asked 416 people what words they used to describe common situations (for instance, “lightly raining”) and also how they pronounced common phrases. Pronunciation was documented via a modified version of IPA transcription and printed directly onto maps, with a sidebar listing respondents’ words and phrases.

In honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday, we thought we’d highlight some of the pages in the Linguistic Atlas documenting interpersonal relationships.

First, here is the record of how respondents asked, “May I escort you home?”

Don’t miss the very sweet response next to 29: “That’s what you say if you want to shine up to a girl after [prayer meeting].”

Presumably after having a nice time escorting someone home, a couple may end up “courting” or “sparking.” (You can see the “delightful” Rhode Island accent in the IPA transcription of “sparking” below.)

I’m not sure how I feel about referring to a marriageable young woman as “good sparking wood,” but I guess no one asked my opinion.

There’s also the (possibly more serious?) “Keeping Company,” including the memorable “beauing her around.”

If you’ve been keeping company with someone nice, you may find that you become quite fond of her.

Maybe you even want to make things official?!

Of course, SHE may not want to make things official. She might even… GIVE HIM THE MITTEN!

 

 

 

 

My Medicinal Valentine

In our great enthusiasm for all things Valentine’s Day, we’d like to offer you this sensible yet romantic 19th century medical meditation on the nature of love.

It’s drawn from an 1851 edition of Buchan’s Domestic Medicine: Or the Family Physician. (I’m pleased that this volume contains an entire section on “The Passions”.)

Love is perhaps the strongest of all the passions: at least, when it becomes violent, it is less subject to the control either of the understanding or will than any of the rest. Fear, anger, and several other passions, are necessary for the preservation of the individual, but love is necessary for the continuation of the species itself. It was therefore proper that this passion should be deeply rooted in the human breast.

Though love be a strong passion, it is seldom so rapid in its progress as several of the others. Few persons fall desperately in love all at once. We would therefore advise every one, before he tampers with this passion, to consider well the probability of his being able to obtain the object of his love. When that is not likely, he should avoid every occasion of increasing it. He ought immediately to fly the company of the beloved object; to apply his mind attentively to business or study; to take every kind of amusement; and, above all, to endeavor, if possible, to find another object which may engage his affections, and which it may be in his power to obtain.

When love becomes a disease, it is not easily cured. Its consequences, in this case, are often so violent, that even the possession of the beloved object will not always remove them. It is therefore of the greatest importance early to guard against its influence; but when the passion has already taken too deep hold of the mind to admit of being eradicated, the beloved object ought if possible to be obtained; nor should this be deferred for every trifling cause. Those who have the disposal of young persons in marriage are too ready to trifle with the passion of love; such, for the most sordid considerations, frequently sacrifice the future health, peace or happiness of those committed to their care.

Bad Children of History #23: My Goopy Valentine

This week’s Bad Children of History come from a treasure trove of misbehavior: Gelett Burgess’s 1909 book Blue Goops and Red: A Manual of Polite Deportment for Children who would be Good, Showing How & How Not to Behave Everywhere. (This book is also a treasure trove of illustrations with a flippable half-page that changes the scene–I’m certain there’s a name for these, but I don’t know what it is.)

Each two-page spread of Burgess’s book has a rhyme about an occasion in which one could behave or misbehave, facing an illustration showing (blue) goops with poor deportment, and then, after one flips the half-page, (red) goops behaving properly. Here’s a topical example:

Oh, isn’t it a pity,

When valentines are pretty,

To send the horrid, comic ones to me?

But often in the city

Some children think they’re witty,

And so I get the kind I hate to see!

Two notes here: one, are the goops actually children? They look sort of like… gingerbread people, although their parents seem to be definitively human. Two, I think it behooves the narrator to consider why children send him or her insulting valentines, but I suppose that’s beside the point.

Here’s the half-page flipping feature I mentioned earlier. Look at those bad goops jeering over a so-called valentine of an old maid while their overly-indulgent parents look on! Wait… wait… look at those nice goops with their tidy envelopes and their relaxed human parents!

Blue Goops and Red also has some absolutely fantastic end-papers. Look at these! Goops galore!