3599 🏆 ’ARRIET

[Paul Keating]

There are still 24 hours to the deadline, but all the expected votes are in, and I am closing the round. The outcome was in doubt right up to the last vote.

Players were quick to recognize the given name Harriet in Da Woid. The point of the word-choice was, what could it mean? The prime suspect was the entirely innocent US abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896), who figured in a NAD and in two definitions, which between them attracted only a single vote. 

The true definition, according to the OED, was #1, “(The type of) a boisterous or jovial young Cockney woman, typically the notional wife or girlfriend of ’Arry,” which enjoyed a brief vogue in the last two decades of the Victorian era, apparently fuelled by cartoons in Punch. As one of the OED’s citations says, it was a name for a stereotype approximating roughly to the twenty-first-century chav, a working-class figure with little education and a flashy style of dress. Who might also have been found, a little later (as Tim Lodge suggested), manning first-aid posts behind the trenches in Flanders in 1915–17. 

That suggestion earned him 3 + 2 = 5* points and the next deal. Runner-up with 4 votes was Tim Bourne’s 18th-century knife.

The name Harriet is still popular in England and Wales, ranked 68 in 2024, when it was the most popular with mothers in their early 30s. The definition suggested to me it might have been much more popular at the turn of the 19th century; but it wasn’t: it ranked 78 in 1904, the first year for which data is readily available.

Judy’s submission accurately pinpointed the origin of the word and was silent as to the meaning. I reluctantly combined it with (or rather, submerged it in) #1, after offering Nancy the opportunity to withdraw it and provide another. She declined my offer, and was dismayed at the result. But she did earn 2 points from votes.

1	(The type of) a boisterous or jovial young Cockney woman, typically the notional wife or girlfriend of ’Arry.
	Votes from Glenn Davis, Tim Lodge
	Real Definition. Score: D2.
	Submitted by: Judy Madnick, who voted for 4, 8. Score: 2.
2	The brief, half-second pause a house cat takes before leaping from a windowsill or other height, during which it calculates the optimal trajectory based on wind speed, carpet density, and existential gravity.
	Vote from Dan Widdis
	Submitted by: Mike Shefler, who voted for 6, 7. Score: 1.
3	A broad-bladed knife used in eighteenth-century London slums as both a kitchen tool and a weapon.
	Votes from Debbie Embler, Efrem Mallach, Shani Naylor, Nancy Shepherdson
	Submitted by: Tim Bourne, who voted for 9, 12. Score: 4.
4	A casket made from a barrel.
	Votes from Eric Boxer, Judy Madnick
	Submitted by: Glenn Davis, who voted for 1, 10. Score: 2+2=4*.
5	“Jim Crow” politics [derived via reaction to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the post Civil War period]
	No votes
	Submitted by: Johnny Barrs, who voted for 9, 11.
6	Kangaroo (Aus. sl.)
	Votes from Debbie Embler, Mike Shefler
	Submitted by: Nancy Shepherdson, who voted for 3, 9. Score: 2.
7	Miniature.
	Votes from Tim Lodge, Mike Shefler
	Submitted by: Eric Boxer, who voted for 4, 11. Score: 2.
8	A nickname coined by British troops in World War I for regimental aid posts, which treated casualties just behind the front line.
	Votes from Judy Madnick, Shani Naylor, Dan Widdis
	Submitted by: Tim Lodge, who voted for 1, 7. Score: 3+2=5*.
9	A reliable year-round water source. [Fm. Arabic; into English c. 1940 by UK soldiers in N. Africa.]
	Votes from Johnny Barrs, Tim Bourne, Nancy Shepherdson
	Submitted by: Efrem Mallach, who voted for 3, 12. Score: 3.
10	A toe [Cockney rhyming slang, from Harriet Beecher Stowe], as in, “Ouch, I’ve just stubbed me ’arriet”.
	Vote from Glenn Davis
	Submitted by: Shani Naylor, who voted for 3, 8. Score: 1.
11	A traditional sandal made of woven leather strips, or by using recycled rubber from automobile tires for the soles.
	Votes from Johnny Barrs, Eric Boxer
	Submitted by: Debbie Embler, who voted for 3, 6. Score: 2.
12	A woven wicker basket with a reinforced handle, traditionally used by street vendors and market traders for carrying produce or goods; characterized by its distinctive flat bottom and high sides.
	Votes from Tim Bourne, Efrem Mallach
	Submitted by: Dan Widdis, who voted for 2, 8. Score: 2.

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Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Judy Madnick]

Quote:

She declined my offer, and was dismayed at the result. But she did earn 2 points from votes.

At least it worked out in the end...and beats t he zeros I've been earning lately. 

  

Judy

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Original Message

From: "Paul Keating" <dixo...@boargules.com>

To: dixo...@googlegroups.com; d...@timlodge.co.uk;

Date: 11/22/2025 7:45:22 AM

Subject: [Dixonary] 3599 🏆 ’ARRIET

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