"effeminate speech", 1801: dudes, dandies & the like

[Baker, John]

        There is a long tradition of stereotypically effeminate men who were vain about their dress and appearance, affected or effeminate in speech, and not very intelligent.  Before the dudes and dandies there were the fops, the fantastics, and the exquisites, going back at least to Elizabethan times.  All of these, however, were, or pretended to be, part of the upper classes; an apprentice, almost by definition, does not qualify.

John Baker