"Has your mother sold her mangle?"

[Hen Hanna]

On Friday, April 7, 2017 at 2:30:04 PM UTC-7, Ross wrote:
> On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 9:03:47 AM UTC+12, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Friday, April 7, 2017 at 2:39:02 PM UTC-6, Dingbat wrote:
> > > 'Has Your Mother Sold Her Mangle?' Slang and the Dictionary | Merriam-Webster
> > > https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/slang-and-the-dictionary
> >
> > Unfortunately it doesn't say what "Has your mother sold her mangle?"
> > meant. "Your clothes are dirty"?
> >
>
> I wondered and thought the same. Partridge (Dict. of Catch Phrases) is
> not much help:
> "An urban, chiefly Londoners', c.p. of no precise application; rather low;
> since the 1830's. There is apparently some reference to a woman taking
> in washing..or no longer doing so."
>
> But here's OED: "a discourteous catchphrase, perh. deriving from a popular
> song and said to allude to the former practice amongst the poor by which
> the possessor of a domestic mangle might derive a small income from taking
> in washing. Obs. N.E.D. (1905) notes: ‘The question..was at one time the commonest piece of “chaff” used by London street-boys.’"
>
> So it might be a taunt about poverty?
>
> (Earliest citation Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ariqquZHan0
(13 minutes)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/half-inch


__________________


"Has your mother sold her mangle?" -- our attitude toward
work & labor has changed so much.


Thank you... very helpful.

We still talk about "dirty laundry".



> OED: "a discourteous catchphrase, perh. deriving from a popular song


Does anyone know which song this might be?
The song seems to be easy to locate, but
there's no YouTube clip for it, apparently.


I'm also interested in other, old taunts.
That is, pls share other Dickens-esque c.p. - catch phrases.

HH


__________

Chris Rock says:
if your daughter's on the pole, you have failed as a parent.

So a similar greeting or "chaff" could be:

"Is your mother still on the pole?"

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 7 Apr 2017 21:15:54 -0700 (PDT), Hen Hanna
<henh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I'm also interested in other, old taunts.
> That is, pls share other Dickens-esque c.p. - catch phrases.

For taunts similar to "Has your mother sold her mangle?", see the post
by Jim Dixon at "Mudcat" on "You dirty little nipper" in which he
quotes several from the book "Slang and Its analogues Past and
Present"


http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=153739

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Don Phillipson]

"Hen Hanna" <henh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8c3d00f2-10de-4624...@googlegroups.com...

> "Has your mother sold her mangle?" --- So what does (did) this mean ?

As noted (cf. citations) this is an insult. However it presupposes
the shared value of a hierarchical social order, in which Top
People can afford a life of leisure while everyone else has to
work, and some occupations rank high while others rank low
(and identify their workers as ranking low.)

In such a social order, being a washerwoman (cleaning
other people's linen for cash) ranked very low. The capital
requirements for this economic occupation were only a
washtub, clothes drying line and mangle. So when you
asked whether someone still owned a mangle you were
insulting him by saying his mother ranked very low in society.

The insult is intelligible only among people who share a
social world in which the hierarchy is both real and relevant.
It makes no sense otherwise. (It calls to mind that in French
Canada "bloke" is an insult because most French Canadians
think it means blockhead; but most native English speakers
know bloke = chap = guy, i.e. everyday slang for any everyday
person. So the intended insult usually dissolves into air.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[charles]

In article <ocapj9$crg$1...@news.albasani.net>,

I mentioned my parents' house haning a fitting for a mangle. When it was
built, there probable were servants to use it, When my parents bought the
house, in 1939, those sort of servants had long gone. I think that my
father bing a lawyer, definitely counted as middle class. My mother used
the mangle herself, or got me or my brother to wind it. This was until we
got a Hoover wasing machine - ming you, it had a built-in mangle so as not
to frighten the user. I'm not sure whether we had a our first fridge before
or after the washing machine.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

[Whiskers]

A mangle was essential domestic equipment well into the 1950s, at which
point spin-dryers began to appear. My grandmother had a splendid
cast-iron and brass thing nearly as tall as she was, and kept it in the
conservatory, whereas my mother's was more modern and compact and bolted
onto the draining-board next to the kitchen sink in our bungalow. They
were both hard work to use, and were (so I was told) one reason for
men's shirts having detachable collars and cuffs and 'studs' and 'links'
instead of buttons. But mainly the mangle was used for bed-sheets,
which were too heavy to lift onto the clothes-line unless you squeezed
most of the water out first.

The mangle was part of the wash-day kit, along with a 'copper' for
boiling things (we had a fancy modern electric one) and a 'tub' and
'clothes tongs' for fishing things out of the hot water and a
'wash-board' for working the soap into the dirty clothes and getting the
dirt out. Doing the laundry took all day, if not longer.

I think we got a (gas-powered) fridge before we got a washing-machine
and spin dryer.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Bill McCray]

From the discussion, I assume that British "mangle" is American "wringer".

Bill in Kentucky

[James Wilkinson Sword]

When I was a kid (35 years ago), my grandmother had one of these: https://youtu.be/TAko-tRbbw8
Pretty fancy compared to my mother's which didn't have the spin dryer on the side. We had a seperate spindryer which weighed virtually nothing, when switched on it would jump all over the place. It had rubber suckers for feet which were intended to stick it to the floor, but they were useless. Someone had to sit on it.

--
Interesting fact number 184:
In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt.

[Robert Bannister]

All this talk of laundry, and it's taken until now to prompt me into
rescuing my towels from the washing machine where I consigned them
nearly an hour ago.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Both mangle and wringer are devices for squeezing water out of clothers,
etc, by passing them between rollers. The difference is, roughly, that
the mangle preceded the wringer and that the mangle is/was an
independent floor-standing device.

Originally mangles were also used for ironing/pressing clothes.

The metal frame of an early mangle was of cast-iron and therefore
sizeable and heavy. This image is of a modern toy-sized model of a
Victorian mangle:
http://www.phoenixmodeldevelopments.com/acatalog/DS15Lnew.jpg

I think that the first mangles I saw were not in people's houses but in
the back gardens (AmE: yards) of their houses. The owners had stopped
using them and had cleared them out of the house but were reluctant to
get rid of them totally.

OED:

mangle, n.3

1.
a. A machine for squeezing water from and pressing linen, clothing,
etc., after washing. Cf. calender n.1 2, wringer n. 6a

.... latterly (now chiefly hist.) consisting of two or more
cylinders revolving against each other within a frame, either
-> free-standing or (often known as a wringer) attached to a washing
machine.

It seems that the same distinction between "mangle" and "wringer" was
made in the US.
This advert (1870) says:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/f2/c2/96/f2c296c73f49f6d9f18fcb9b40048e06.jpg

WARD'S AMERICAN MANGLES
FOR IRONING CLOTHES WITHOUT HEAT

Suitable for Families, Institutions nd Hotels.
More work can be done in an hour with a Mangle,
than in half a day with the sad-iron, and the
clothes will look fresher and more glossy.

Also the UNION WASHINH MACINE AND WRINGER,
acknowledged to be the best and most durable
ever made. ....
J WARD & CO
No. 31 (formerly 23) Courtland St., N.Y.

From:
http://tinyurl.com/ke3ok6o

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Oops! My typos.

[GordonD]

Yeah, that's what your mother told you...
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I saw what happened when nobody did, it was quite hilarious. A slightly uneven load and it would make very loud banging noises, leave the floor, and end up rolling around on it's side (it was cylindrical). Something like this, although a different make (I can't believe they still make them! Don't we all use the washing machine to spin?):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Frigidaire-FSD28-2800-Spin-Dryer/dp/B001V69B66

--
What's the best thing to get for a woman who has everything?
A man to show her how to work it.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <ll0kecliuhofb1d5l...@4ax.com>,

"Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

What would a "sad-iron" be? There is a typo below, so perhaps this is
one as well?

>
> Also the UNION WASHINH MACINE AND WRINGER,
> acknowledged to be the best and most durable
> ever made. ....
> J WARD & CO
> No. 31 (formerly 23) Courtland St., N.Y.
>
> From:
> http://tinyurl.com/ke3ok6o

--

chaaarles

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Not one of my typos. :-)

OED:

sad iron, n.

Etymology: < sad adj. + iron n.1

A solid flat iron for smoothing clothes, in contradistinction to a
hollow box iron. Cf. sad adj. 8b.

1759 Newport (Rhode Island) Mercury 9 Oct. 4/3 Imported from
London & Bristol, And to be sold by Samuel Goldthwait..Sad Irons,
Box Ditto, Brass and Iron Candlesticks.
1787 Maryland Gaz. 1 June 1/2 Hardware of all kinds... Sad-Irons
in casks of 2 cwt.
<snip more sad irons>

sad, adj.

III. In various physical senses, principally developed from branch
A. I. {see below}

8. Of material objects.
....

b. Solid; dense, compact; massive, heavy. Also fig. Now rare
(regional in later use).In early use freq. ‘solid, as opposed to
-> hollow’; cf. sad iron n., sadware n. at Special uses 2.

a1375 William of Palerne (1867) 1072 (MED), No strengþe him
wiþstod of sad stonen walles.
....
a1425 (?c1395) Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Royal) (1850) Exod.
xxxviii. 7 Thilke auter was not sad [L. solidum], but holowe.
....

†c. Solid as opposed to liquid. Also fig. Obs.

?c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Heb. v. 13
To whom is nede of mylk, and not sad mete [L. solido cibo]
....

A. adj.
I. Of persons and immaterial things: satisfied, full; steady,
serious.

†1. Having had one's fill; satisfied, sated; weary or tired (of
something). Chiefly with of or infinitive. Obs.

That, now obsolete, sense of "satisfied", etc. is the original and is
shared with other Germanic languages.

The etymological note says:

The semantic development in branch A. II. {Feeling sorrow or
regret}, is apparently peculiar to English. This is now the usual
sense in English; the sense of ‘having had one's fill; satisfied’
(the usual sense shared by the Germanic cognates) is now often
expressed instead by words deriving ultimately < classical Latin
satis (see e.g. satiate adj., satiety n.).

>>
>> Also the UNION WASHINH MACINE AND WRINGER,
>> acknowledged to be the best and most durable
>> ever made. ....
>> J WARD & CO
>> No. 31 (formerly 23) Courtland St., N.Y.
>>
>> From:
>> http://tinyurl.com/ke3ok6o

--

[Charles Bishop]

In article <vsokec5ja6bnk37eg...@4ax.com>,

> a1375 William of Palerne (1867) 1072 (MED), No streng©≠e him
> wi©≠stod of sad stonen walles.

> ....
> a1425 (?c1395) Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Royal) (1850) Exod.
> xxxviii. 7 Thilke auter was not sad [L. solidum], but holowe.
> ....
>
> ¢”c. Solid as opposed to liquid. Also fig. Obs.
>
> ?c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Heb. v. 13
> To whom is nede of mylk, and not sad mete [L. solido cibo]
> ....
>
> A. adj.
> I. Of persons and immaterial things: satisfied, full; steady,
> serious.
>
> ¢”1. Having had one's fill; satisfied, sated; weary or tired (of
> something). Chiefly with of or infinitive. Obs.
>
> That, now obsolete, sense of "satisfied", etc. is the original and is
> shared with other Germanic languages.
>
> The etymological note says:
>
> The semantic development in branch A. II. {Feeling sorrow or
> regret}, is apparently peculiar to English. This is now the usual

> sense in English; the sense of °Æhaving had one's fill; satisfied°Ø

> (the usual sense shared by the Germanic cognates) is now often
> expressed instead by words deriving ultimately < classical Latin
> satis (see e.g. satiate adj., satiety n.).
>
>
> >>
> >> Also the UNION WASHINH MACINE AND WRINGER,
> >> acknowledged to be the best and most durable
> >> ever made. ....
> >> J WARD & CO
> >> No. 31 (formerly 23) Courtland St., N.Y.
> >>
> >> From:
> >> http://tinyurl.com/ke3ok6o

Thanks for all of that. I had no idea there was that meaning. Is there
any use of "sad" with that meaning in current use?

--
charles

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Sun, 09 Apr 2017 21:41:52 -0700, Charles Bishop

>> a1375 William of Palerne (1867) 1072 (MED), No streng©?e him
>> wi©?stod of sad stonen walles.

Good question!

I recognised "sad iron" as a historical term. I didn't know the origin
until yesterday when I looked in the OED and found the information
above.

When wondering how the meaning of "sad" changed from "full" or "heavy"
to "unhappy" I thought of "sorrowful" and "heavy-hearted" and saw a
possible link.

[John Varela]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2017 14:10:35 UTC, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"

In mid-20th-century American English a mangle was a machine with a
pair of heated rollers used to iron linens.

--
John Varela

[Robert Bannister]

While "voll" (German for "full") is more likely to mean "drunk".
Sad really.

[Snidely]

Don Phillipson wrote on 4/8/2017 :

> "Hen Hanna" <henh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:8c3d00f2-10de-4624...@googlegroups.com...

So what happened to that message, and why isn't Don replying to
Dingbat?
(The one Hen Hanna message I see in the original thread has
Message-ID: <3d2832dd-00d8-4e4e...@googlegroups.com> )

>> "Has your mother sold her mangle?" --- So what does (did) this mean ?
>
> As noted (cf. citations) this is an insult. However it presupposes
> the shared value of a hierarchical social order, in which Top
> People can afford a life of leisure while everyone else has to
> work, and some occupations rank high while others rank low
> (and identify their workers as ranking low.)
>
> In such a social order, being a washerwoman (cleaning
> other people's linen for cash) ranked very low. The capital
> requirements for this economic occupation were only a
> washtub, clothes drying line and mangle. So when you
> asked whether someone still owned a mangle you were
> insulting him by saying his mother ranked very low in society.
>
> The insult is intelligible only among people who share a
> social world in which the hierarchy is both real and relevant.
> It makes no sense otherwise. (It calls to mind that in French
> Canada "bloke" is an insult because most French Canadians
> think it means blockhead; but most native English speakers
> know bloke = chap = guy, i.e. everyday slang for any everyday
> person. So the intended insult usually dissolves into air.)

So the French Canadians calm down quickly after a gasp?

/dps

--
"This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away be excitement,
but ask calmly, how does this person feel about in in his cooler
moments next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on
top of him?"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain.

[Whiskers]

On 2017-04-11, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Don Phillipson wrote on 4/8/2017 :
>
>> "Hen Hanna" <henh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:8c3d00f2-10de-4624...@googlegroups.com...
>
> So what happened to that message, and why isn't Don replying to
> Dingbat?
> (The one Hen Hanna message I see in the original thread has
> Message-ID: <3d2832dd-00d8-4e4e...@googlegroups.com> )

There seem to be three independent threads related to this subject. The
one starting with

Message-ID: <df9d8d81-9f77-4ee0...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: 'Has Your Mother Sold Her Mangle?' Slang and the Dictionary | Merriam-Webster
From: Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com>

is in AUE. This seems to be the only one with Dingbat taking part.

Then there's one starting with

Message-ID: <8c3d00f2-10de-4624...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: “Has your mother sold her mangle?”
From: Hen Hanna <henh...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.english.usage

which has some cross-posted responses in AUE, starting with

Message-ID: <ocapj9$crg$1...@news.albasani.net>
References: <8c3d00f2-10de-4624...@googlegroups.com>
From: "Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english

Only Hen Hanna can explain why he started a new thread on effectively
the same subject but in a different newsgroup, and only Don Phillipson
can explain why he chose to cross-post his response and thus start a
third thread back in AUE.

I suggest we blame Google.

[Robert Bannister]

I would imagine that a French speaker attempting to say "bloke" would
most likely produce "bloc".

[Snidely]

Whiskers pounded on thar keyboard to tell us

> I suggest we blame Google.

I counter-suggest we blame OE.

/dps "but Early Modern English is off the hook"

--
There's nothing inherently wrong with Big Data. What matters, as it
does for Arnold Lund in California or Richard Rothman in Baltimore, are
the questions -- old and new, good and bad -- this newest tool lets us
ask. (R. Lerhman, CSMonitor.com)

[Snidely]

Robert Bannister explained on 4/11/2017 :

Recall "So the intended insult usually dissolves into air"

/dps

--
Who, me? And what lacuna?

[CDB]

On 4/13/2017 2:15 AM, Snidely wrote:
> Robert Bannister explained:
>> Snidely wrote:
>>> Don Phillipson wrote:

[my mum can beat your mum]

>>>> The insult is intelligible only among people who share a
>>>> social world in which the hierarchy is both real and relevant.
>>>> It makes no sense otherwise. (It calls to mind that in French
>>>> Canada "bloke" is an insult because most French Canadians
>>>> think it means blockhead; but most native English speakers know
>>>> bloke = chap = guy, i.e. everyday slang for any everyday
>>>> person. So the intended insult usually dissolves into air.)

>>> So the French Canadians calm down quickly after a gasp?

>> I would imagine that a French speaker attempting to say "bloke"
>> would most likely produce "bloc".

Most French Canadians -- virtually all outside Quebec -- are more
familiar with English than that. Léandre Bergeron, in his _Dictionnaire
de la Langue Québecoise_ gives the pronunciation as "blauque".

> Recall "So the intended insult usually dissolves into air"

I think they have sturdier insults, some still possibly liturgical, when
they want to be serious about it.

[Quinn C]

* Peter Duncanson [BrE]:

Some dictionaries list "sad bread", a kind of heavy bread, as a
surviving term with this sense.

> When wondering how the meaning of "sad" changed from "full" or "heavy"
> to "unhappy" I thought of "sorrowful" and "heavy-hearted" and saw a
> possible link.

Wiktionary's meaning 2 gives another path, which seems more
convincing to me:

| Sated, having had one's fill; satisfied, weary.

Makes me think of "Es ist genug", it is enough - when you had your
fill of life and now are weary.

--
The country has its quota of fools and windbags; such people are
most prominent in politics, where their inherent weaknesses seem
less glaring and attract less ridicule than they would in other
walks of life. -- Robert Bothwell et.al.: Canada since 1945

[Quinn C]

* Peter Duncanson [BrE]:

> On Sun, 09 Apr 2017 21:41:52 -0700, Charles Bishop
> <ctbi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>In article <vsokec5ja6bnk37eg...@4ax.com>,
>> "Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 09 Apr 2017 09:13:09 -0700, Charles Bishop
>>> <ctbi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> >In article <ll0kecliuhofb1d5l...@4ax.com>,
>>> > "Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

[...]

[...]

>>Thanks for all of that. I had no idea there was that meaning. Is there
>>any use of "sad" with that meaning in current use?
>
> Good question!
>
> I recognised "sad iron" as a historical term. I didn't know the origin
> until yesterday when I looked in the OED and found the information
> above.

Some dictionaries list "sad bread", a kind of heavy bread, as a
surviving term with this sense.

> When wondering how the meaning of "sad" changed from "full" or "heavy"
> to "unhappy" I thought of "sorrowful" and "heavy-hearted" and saw a
> possible link.