cat houses, clams, convents & nuns

Thu Mar 9 21:11:48 UTC 2006

Priceless, George, especially "cat-house."

  A few years ago there was a local business called "The Cat House" which traded in, you guessed it, cat furnishings.  Its nine lives went fast.

  JL

George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: George Thompson
Subject: cat houses, clams, convents & nuns
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More low words from the gutter press of olden days:

1850: . . . he was afterwards seen snugly ensconced in a chamber of
a notorious cat-house. . . .
Life in Boston and New England Police Gazette, May 18, 1850,
p. 3, col. 2

HDAS has ca1893, 1913, &c, so this is a 45+ year antedating; OED can't
do better than 1931 (IV:18).

1843: Prostitution is increasing amazing fast. Some think it is
owing to the hardness of the times, while others assert that the
growing taste for clams, may be accounted for by the scarcity of
codfish, there being a striking affinity between the flavor and price
of the two articles when plenty.
NY Sporting Whip, February 4, 1843, p. 1, cols. 1-2

1855: [He] asked [a young lady] if she had been eating clam
soup. "No," she replied, "I have got clam enough."
Broadway Belle, and Mirror of the Times, March 12, 1855, p. 6,
col. 4

HDAS (1a, the mouth): 1825, 1833, 1914; (1b, the vulva or vagina): 1916
In the 1855 quote, the youung lady might be suppose to be answering "I
have mouth enough, am talkative enough -- but considering the source I
suppose that the editor wanted his readers to see an amphibology.
OED has only the sense of the mouth (clam #2, sense 3)

1832: Mr. Editor. Some few nights since I was called upon by a
gentleman, in appearance, to convey himself and lady to a convent in
Thomas-street, I obeyed his call, handed off the lovely Rosina to the
coach, then drove the loving pair off in fine style, away we rattled
over the stones, arrived at the door out popped the lovers, in popped
my gentleman and lady and I got diddled out of my carriage hire. What
can I do in such a case? he is a confectioner, and she is a OH DEAR.
Hawk & Buzzard, September 8, 1832 (I:4) p. 4, col. 2

1833: . . . I wish to notice a young gentleman who made his debut on
Sunday evening on the Chapel-street carpet with the passions of a
Romeo. . . , he wilted like a head of cabbage under the pelting rays
of a NUN. . . . Now Mr. Editor, let me ask you whether such language
is fit to be used in a respectable convent.
Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard, September 21, 1833 (ns II:7) p. 2, col. 2

HDAS has only one cite, from 1759; the sense doesn't seem to be in OED
at all. This seems remarkable to me: one of the things my ancestors
were really good at was anti-catholicism -- another was antisemitism,
of course -- as well as -- but never mind. In any event, I would have
thought that calling a brothel a convent would hvae been fairly
widespread in England as well as the U. S.

1833: The nuns who were at the Bowery theatre on Monday night, found
business on the increase, the flats bit well and some of the prime uns
nibbled. Paint add much to attract in the evening, and two covies
found themselves in company not with virgins but half anotomized [sic]
figures when they awoke in the morning.
Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard, September 21, 1833 (ns II:7) p. 1, col. 3

1833: . . . I wish to notice a young gentleman who made his debut on
Sunday evening on the Chapel-street carpet with the passions of a
Romeo. . . , he wilted like a head of cabbage under the pelting rays
of a NUN. . . . Now Mr. Editor, let me ask you whether such language
is fit to be used in a respectable convent.
Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard, September 21, 1833 (ns II:7) p. 2, col. 2

1834: . . . The spreeing blades and dashing nuns, I trow, must keep
quite civil. . . .
Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard, September 6, 1834 (ns III:31), p. 4,
col. 2

HDAS doesn't have this sense; OED has it from 1515, which is more like
it, but as usual, nothing from a U. S. source.
HDAS has "covey" from *ca1811, *1821, 1835, 1839, 1840, so this is a
slight antedating of that word; it has "flat" from the mid-18th C in
England, 1791 and numerous later cites from U. S. sources.

By the way:
As regards the "convent in Thomas-street": Thomas street was where
the "African Grove" was located, and where the first performance
(Richard III) took place of my "African Theatre", both in 1821. While
researching the AT, I found a number of "disorderly house" complaints
directed at brothels on Thomas street in the early 1820s. Later, in
the mid-1830s, Thomas street was the site of Rosina Townsend's
whorehouse where Helen Jewett was murdered. That was a sensation at
the time and was the subject of two academic studies in the 1990s. I
don't know whether the fact that the hackie calls the nun who stiffed
him "the lovely Rosina" means that she was Rosina Townsend herself;
descriptions in the press after the Jewett murder suggests
that "lovely" would be a great overstatement.
Also: the theaters of NYC were a customary cruising ground for whores
and johns.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org