Sunday throat (1905); Peas with a knife (1828); Ears lowered (1947)

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SUNDAY THROAT

SUNDAY THROAT--39 Google hits, 11 Google Groups hits

   Discussed here in 2002.

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-sun1.htm
SUNDAY THROAT
[Q] From Molly Walzer: “A phrase remembered from my childhood: when one chokes, one might say, ‘It must have gone down my Sunday throat!’ That is, something has been inhaled rather than swallowed. I didn’t realise this wasn’t universally known until my husband questioned it. My parents are mid-western US in origin. Is something like this in general parlance?”

[A] It’s hardly common, to judge from the few references that have turned up, though it does still seem to be known today, and it’s certainly American in immediate origin.

The two places in which I’ve definitively managed to track it down are both books from the early part of the twentieth century. One is The Lure Of The Dim Trails by B M Bower, dated 1907: “Hank was taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple. Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his Sunday throat—and Thurston, who had never heard of a man’s Sunday throat, eyed him with suspicion”. The other is from The Eskimo Twins, by Lucy Perkins (1914): “The water went down his ‘Sunday-throat’ and choked him!”.

Apart from this, I was at a complete loss. So I turned to members of the American Dialect Society. Douglas G Wilson suggested that Sunday here might have started out with its figurative meaning of “special” (as in Sunday clothes, for one’s best) but that could have shifted to mean “alternative; other”. It did so in the American slang expression Sunday face, which once meant a sanctimonious expression, but which took on a slang sense of the buttocks, that is, the “other” face. (Well, it does have two cheeks.) So Sunday throat just means “the other throat”, which is clear enough, though anatomically inaccurate.

[Since this piece first appeared in the newsletter, subscribers have told me that they remember it from their youth, and that it also occurred as Sunday pipe and Sunday lane. It also transpires that similar phrases are known in Dutch and French, so the term may not be American, but one imported from Europe by immigrants.]


(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
Stevens Point Journal -  11/11/1905
...ma swallowed something crosswise down her SUNDAY throat, and choked, and pa swatted her.....or a truly good bank cashier ,who teaches SUNDAY school, and skips time of for if tw do.....would have preaching in tho main tent every SUNDAY, and he says there is no more pious..
Stevens Point,  Wisconsin     Saturday, November 11, 1905   929 k Â

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PEAS WITH A KNIFE

PEAS WITH A KNIFE--443 Google hits, 176 Google Groups hits

   This is either a test of skill or a breach of etiquette, this book I'm going through tells me.
   Don't do it.  It'll give you "Sunday throat."


(GOOGLE GROUPS)
Eating peas with your knife
The man who bites his bread, or eats peas with a knife, I look upon
as a lost creature. -- WS Gilbert, _Ruddigore_ The total want ...
alt.quotations - Mar 7, 2002 by The Sanity Inspector - View Thread (4 articles)

Re: Medieval dishes using peas
... Nor is it the case that people in the middle ages didn't have utensils--spoons were
readily available, and eating peas with a knife is a good deal harder than ...
rec.food.historic - May 25, 1996 by David Friedman - View Thread (55 articles)

3G04: Das Butte
... MAJOR GOOF: according to a Dudley Do-Right episode, eating your peas with
a knife is the surest way of getting kicked out the Canadian RCMP. ...
alt.tv.simpsons - Mar 30, 1998 by Haynes Lee - View Thread (3 articles)


(LITERATURE ONLINE)(Prose)
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1806-1867  [Author Page]
Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil (1845) Â 4646Kb

Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil  4643Kb [URL for this text]
Found 1 hit(s):

Main text  4636Kb [URL for this text]

DASHES AT LIFE WITH A FREE PENCIL. Â 3766Kb [URL for this text]

PART IV; EPHEMERA. Â 1920Kb [URL for this text]

FROM SARATOGA. TO THE JULIA OF SOME YEARS AGO. Â 1462Kb [URL for this text]

...chairs, some who wear long naps to their hats, some peas with a knife, some who pour out their tea into...


(LITERATURE ONLINE)(Drama)
1. Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck), 1836-1911  [Author Page]
Ruddigore (1902-1911) Â 170Kb

RUDDIGORE; OR, THE WITCH'S CURSE. AN ENTIRELY ORIGINAL SUPERNATURAL OPERA, IN TWO ACTS. Â 165Kb [URL for this text]
Found 1 hit(s):


Main text  162Kb [URL for this text]

ACT I. Â 96Kb [URL for this text]

Scene  96Kb [URL for this text]

...bites his bread, or eats peas with a knife, I look...


2. Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck), 1836-1911  [Author Page]
The sorcerer (1902-1911) Â 108Kb

THE SORCERER. AN ENTIRELY ORIGINAL MODERN COMIC OPERA, IN TWO ACTS. Â 103Kb [URL for this text]
Found 1 hit(s):


Main text  101Kb [URL for this text]

ACT II. Â 41Kb [URL for this text]

...Hate me! I always eat peas with a knife! Lady S....


3. Mortimer, Lillian. [Author Page]
No Mother to Guide Her: By Lillian Mortimer [in, The Great Diamond Robbery & Other Recent Melodramas: By Edward M. Alfriend & A. C. Wheeler: Clarence Bennett: Charles A. Taylor: Lillian Mortimer: Walter Woods. Edited by Garrett H. Leverton] Â 204Kb

NO MOTHER TO GUIDE HER By Lillian Mortimer  201Kb [URL for this text]
Found 1 hit(s):


Main text  194Kb [URL for this text]

ACT I. Â 80Kb [URL for this text]

...[Standardized name] Cut their throats eating peas with a knife. Lindy ....


4. Smith, Richard Penn, 1799-1854  [Author Page]
Quite Correct (1828) Â 135Kb

QUITE CORRECT; A COMEDY---IN TWO ACTS. BY R. PENN SMITH. As performed at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. Â 133Kb [URL for this text]
Found 1 hit(s):


Main text  131Kb [URL for this text]

ACT II. Â 63Kb [URL for this text]

Scene II. Â 17Kb [URL for this text]

...who would drink porter, eat peas with a knife, and burn...

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DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HEAR AND HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE

YOU HEAR AND HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE--537 Google hits, 305 Google Groups hits

   I couldn't find this on ProQuest or on Newspaperarchive.

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DON"T CRY OVER ANYTHING THAT CAN'T CRY OVER YOU

DON'T CRY + CAN'T CRY OVER YOU--23 Google hits, 2 Google Groups hits

   Said when you see your house burn down.

(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
Barbara Walters Meets Her Match
By Tom Shales. The Washington Post (1974-Current file). Washington, D.C.: Feb 6, 1984. p. C1 (2 pages)
Second page:  "Don't cry over something that can't cry over you."
(Said by Mr T--ed.)

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EARS LOWERED

EARS LOWERED--641 Google hits, 213 Google Groups hits

   A haircut.  Not in HDAS under "ear"?  Not in OED?
   The CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG has "20C" for "get one's ears lowered."

(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
Coe Cosmos -  6/7/1947
...have you seen Dick Corbett since he got his EARS LOWERED? It's a lamble pie super special..
Cedar Rapids,  Iowa     Saturday, June 07, 1947   368 k Â

Waukesha Daily Freeman -  7/5/1950
...haircut." You figure out what getting your EARS LOWERED has to do the law of gravity. We..
Waukesha,  Wisconsin     Wednesday, July 05, 1950   564 k Â

Dixon Evening Telegraph -  1/30/1953
...sons of Mr, and Mrs. Robort West got their EARS LOWERED. Kim i.< in the rhair, while..
Dixon,  Illinois     Friday, January 30, 1953   816 k Â


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
A Haircut's What You Do Not Get
By Aline Mosby. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Sep 7, 1947. p. L1 (1 page):
   With this tonsorial treatment, even a guy's sharp-eyed wife can't tell that he's just had his ears lowered.