Soup should be seen and not heard (1917)

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Fri Dec 12 03:06:58 UTC 2003


http://jerseyshorefood.com/oceancounty/tomsriver/oldtimetavern/ottapps.html
"Soup should be seen and not heard." - anonymous

   There are 137 Google hits for "soup should be seen and not heard."  It's an anti-slurpian commandment.
   There are 3,560 Google hits for "children should be seen and not heard."  OED traces the phrase to about 1450, with "a maid should be seen and not heard."  Everybody ought to have a maid.
   I found this while going through the Harry Franck travel ouevre.


VAGAONDING DOWN THE ANDES
by Harry A, Franck
New York:  The Century Company
1917

Pg. 10:  It recalled a placard I had seen in a Texas restaurant on my journey southward: "Eat first, THEN talk," and amid the opening chorus Hays' memory harked back to a sign that once embellished a Bowery institution: "Soup should be seen and not heard."



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