lox (smoked salmon) from 1668??

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, I've always found the odor of wet wool clothing to be
unpleasant, about as unpleasant as the odor of wet dog. I haven't
smelled the odor of wet, raw wool still on, or fresh off, the sheep,
but I don't imagine that I'd find it any more pleasant than the odor
of wet, processed wool.

-Wilson

On 8/6/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: lox (smoked salmon) from 1668??
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 8/6/06, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > At 8/6/2006 01:30 AM, Doug Wilson wrote:
> > >What does the extended context call for? Would one expect that "lox" refers
> > >to something with a foul odor along the lines of feces?
> > >
> > >Would one expect locks = wool to have a foul odor?
> >
> > I haven't smelled the underside of a sheep in a long time.
> >
> > (More seriously, though, I wonder what belly wool smells like after
> > shearing but before washing.  And some people say they don't eat lamp
> > because it has an unpleasant odor.  Perhaps some also are repelled by
> > the odor of the live animal.)
>
> Not just belly wool, but wool in general may have been associated with
> foul odor in the late 17th - early 18th centuries, since it was rarely
> washed when used for clothing (unlike later cotton textiles). From
> _Daily Life in 18th-Century England_ by Kirstin Olsen (p. 268):
>
> "Washing clothes was difficult early in the century, before cheap and
> washable cotton replaced wool as the dominant fabric. In Samuel
> Johnson's youth, shirts were changed once a week. The rich could
> afford to mask their odor with perfumes; the poor had to get used to
> the smell or suffer."
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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