h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice one ~jwf~

How do they _do_ that?

The last seconds display a short credit to "the last Church of Christ" or similar. WTF? As they say.

You have a very quick eye TC!

I had to look for that and rewind a couple of times
before I could see what it said. You're right and I'm
at a complete loss to explain it. It's either a send-up
or legitimate but I can't offer an opinion. Can't imagine
the First Church of Christ endorsing the mash-up of a
Canadian video classic.




Nice picture Pit posted.

But it doesn't explain the etymology of Lace.
And I can't say now cus I cheated by looking
it up on Dictdotcom. Quelle surprise!

As for Tawdry... are we still looking?
Hint: It's kinda like Maggots at Silverstone.


~jwf~

Is that a gentle hint?

Not really. If you know that Maggots corner gets its
name from Saint Margaret (there's another Maggots in
London somewhere I think) then figuring out Tawdry is
fairly straight forward if you know your saints.

~jwf~

Not everybody knows there was a St Audrey though.

She disdained to wear flashy jewelled necklaces, and settled for a piece of needlework instead, which thence came to be also called lace, and specifically 'St Audrey's lace', which was later shortened to 'tawdry lace'.

The lives of saints make fascinating stories.

A young unmarried woman came to St Bridget, saying that she was pregnant. Bridget 'prayed over the woman' and the baby 'went away'.

Just like St Michael O'Leary.

Hmm...

The source, Saint Audreys Fair is what I had learned
from the old NFB (National Film Board) short. But the
etymology they gave suggested that lace made by the
*girls* at St Audreys was of an inferior quality to that
made elsewhere at other convents and nunneries. IE:
lace from St Audreys was not as fine as other sources.

The NFB website is no help in locating the original TV
vignette and its bothering me now that I cannot find
any confirmation of my memory of this.

Even good old Dictdotcom assigns the negativity aspect
of tawdry to the Saint herself being less than fussy about
what she wore to cover her throat tumors.

>>
Word Origin & History
tawdry
"cheap, showy, gaudy," 1676, adjective use of noun tawdry "silk necktie for women" (1612), shortened from tawdry lace (1548), an alteration of St. Audrey's lace, a necktie or ribbon sold at the annual fair at Ely on Oct. 17 commemorating St. Audrey (queen of Northumbria, died 679), whose name was worn down from O.E. Æðelðryð "noble might," from æðele "noble" (from P.Gmc. *athala-, from PIE *at-al- "race, family," from *at(i)- "over, beyond, super" + *al- "to nourish") + ðryð "might." Her association with cheap lace necklaces is that she supposedly died of a throat tumor, which she considered God's punishment for her youthful fondness for showy necklaces [Bede].
<<

So I guess the NFB was wrong or prejudiced and the evidence is gone.
I&#39;ll have to accept that tawdry is an adjective derived about 1600 from
the older noun tawdry used by Bede to mean a lace necktie as worn by
the saint in the 7th century.

There is some hope that the lace neckties sold at the annual St Audreys
Fair were deliberately of an inferior quality being for a short term use, a
souvenir of the day, like a paper party hat today is not sufficient to the task
of sun block or weather protection like a true hat.

Anyway, we&#39;ve found the source if not the exact etymology - though one
needs to be wary of denying the venerable Bede.


And just to round this up, lace itself is from the Latin for noose.

Although I&#39;m at a loss to decide on the use of lace in expressions such
as *the punch was laced with booze* or *the meat was laced with arsenic*.
Does it imply that the additional ingredient is a bit of ornament, an add on,
or does it mean the forrin element has been (woven) blended in.

(on a library computer which only gives me Barlesque skin so Ive tried to
delete all my apostrophes, inverted commas and quote marks but I have
no idea what will happen to the cut and pasted text)


~jwf~

I& #39;m sorry to say they look like this . . . (I put a space in there just in case Barlesque reintrpreted the code)

Well you have driven me back to OED and I find I was misinformed before! As you say,

[quote from OED:]
As to the origin of the name, it is told, originally by Bæda ( Eccl. Hist. iv. ix.), and after him by Ælfric in the Life of St. Æþelðryth, Virgin ( Ælfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, 1885, xx. ll. 49–60), that St. Audrey died of a tumour in her throat, which she considered to be a just retribution, because in her youth she had for vain show adorned her neck with manifold splendid necklaces, ‘forðan þe ic on iugoðe frætwede mine swuran mid mænigfealdum swurbeagum’. In the 16th century, N. Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury under Philip and Mary (died 1588), after relating the story in his (Latin) Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica (Douay 1622), adds ‘Our women of England are wont to wear about the neck a certain necklace [torquem quendam], formed of thin and fine silk, perchance in memory of what we have told’. See also, more particularly, quot. 1674 below. Skinner in his Etymologicon (licensed 1668), explains Tawdry lace as ‘Ties, fringes, or bands, bought at the fair held at the fane of St. Etheldreda, as rightly points out Doctor Th. Henshaw’. There is no discrepancy between the two statements. ‘St. Audrey's laces’ would naturally be largely offered for sale at her fair, and though this did not give the article its name, it doubtless made it more widely known, and led to the production of cheap and showy forms for the ‘country wenches’ (see Nares s.v.), which at length gave to tawdry its later connotation.
[end quote]

The fact that lace originates as 'popular Latin lacium (Latin laqueum) meaning a noose' (think lasso) is fascinating too. That's where the shoelaces come from.

From necklaces presumably came the gold and silver lace (braid) that decorates fancy uniforms; and from _that_ presumably comes the sense of lace meaning a streak of colour ('The Zebra&#8229;resembling a Horse&#8229;all over-laid with partie coloured Laces, and guards, from head to Taile.' 1613) . . .

And from _that_ presumably comes the dash of something in your coffee. Throughout the 18th century, it seems (according to OED) that sugar was the primary lacing substance, spirits coming later. Johnson's 1755 dictionary gives 'Lace, sugar. A cant word' and appends the quotation 'He drinks his coffee without lace.'

About the curious use of 'guard' in the zebra quote, meaning 11a of guard (noun) is

'An ornamental border or trimming on a garment. Obs. exc. Hist. or arch.
(The original notion may have been that of a binding to keep the edge of the cloth from fraying.)'

Oops, didn't see that coming up! The quote is

The Zebra..resembling a Horse..all over-laid with partie coloured Laces, and guards, from head to Taile.

Wow, has anybody come across the phrase 'without welt or guard'? The welt in this case is 'A narrow strip of material put on the edge of a garment, etc., as a border, binding, or hem; a frill, fringe, or trimming.' Just like a guard then.

OED:

Phrase. without welt or guard: without ornamentation or trimming. Obs.

That's nice too: the old spelling of Audrey was Etheldreda

Is there anyone called Ethel who pronounces her name Aw? Just wondering.

She's also known as St. Æthelthryth

I know you need to have this information, don't thank me

It's a wonderful example of the evolution (distortion)
of facts over the centuries. The longer the story exists
the more variations occur based on the basic facts. And
where those facts have been written down (Bede) it seems
to add credence to the variables created by the evolution
of the language and the culture in which the ritual is
preserved.

I hazard a guess that St Audrey's tale is near on par with
King Arthur and Robin Hood and the aforementioned Saint
Bridget - whose names and deeds have at least as many
variations in historical records and folklore.

~jwf~

Yes, except in the case of St. Æthelthryth (pron. Audrey) a factual basis is the simplest explanation. A woman gets a tumour on her best feature, says "it's a judgement!" and is held in veneration.

Indeed the Arthur stories must have had some basis too. Oscar Wilde's father Sir William was a very successful archaeologist and his way of working was to ask the locals 'What stories are told about this place?'

Oddly the stories that most catch the imagination and wishful thoughts of generations are the ones with the least basis in fact: like the Holy Grail quest, unheard of before the twelfth century.

Is the fane the Saint's day?

Beg pardon?