Ameliorated words of offensive origin

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 05:49 PM 2/27/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>How about "leg," or is that whole Victorian clothing the piano/using
>"limb" instead thing a folk belief?
>
>Erin M
>editor at verbatimmag.com
>

Well, by now this is a different topic from the one with which this thread
began, but the canard that people put coverings on the legs of Victorian
pianos out of prudishness has been refuted by Victorian studies specialists
several times since 1994 on Victoria-L. See the archive at:

http://listserv.indiana.edu/scripts/wa.exe?S1=victoria

Try "piano leg" as a search-string.



Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at nyu.edu