lace work (dirty work)

[George Thompson]

Paul Johnson suggests: Isn't there the possibility that "lace work"
here is used in the sense of embroidering the facts. . . .

Perhaps.  The NPG and its readers were devoted to prizefighting.

It would help if there were another example of "lacework" that clearly
refers to a boxing tactic.  Checking all of the likely files in
Proquest doesn't show anything.  There are many, many appearances
of "lacework", with & without the hyphen; however I limit the search
(and boxing or match, &c; and not fashion, &c) there are still too
many to check in detail, but the few that by the headline don't seem
impossible don't pan out.

The passage quoted from NPG doesn't appear, either -- I originally
found it the old-fashioned way, by reading the magazine.

GAT

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Johnson <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
Date: Friday, January 26, 2007 12:10 pm
Subject: Re: lace work (dirty work)

> Isn't there the possibility that "lace work" here is used in the
sense
> of embroidering the facts, as cheap hankies had  the type of lace
that
> could be bought by the yard added to them to make them look more
> valuable.
> George Thompson wrote:
>
> >        Divorces without Publicity.  The Divorce must be obtained at
> >all hazards.  Where the husband is a jolly, good-natured fellow, who
> >goes freely about town, all this evidence business is very much
> >easier.  It is here that the special divorce detective gets his
> lace-
> >work in.  [He follows the jolly fellow until "facts have been
> >accumulated that will bear but one significance, however skillfully
> >used by lawyers engaged to fight a dissolving decree".]
> >        National Police Gazette, November 22, 1879, p. 14, cols.
> 3-4;
> >reprinted in Samuel A. MacKeever, Glimpses of Gotham, (N. Y.:
> National>Police Gazette Office, 1880) pp. 21-23; reprinted by
> James D. McCabe,
> >New York by Gaslight, (1882, 1984 reprint) p. 286
> >        My father used to speak of a practice among prize-fighter of
> >rubbing the laces of their gloves across their opponent's face
> and in
> >his eyes.  I believe that current rules require that the laces be
> >covered with tape, to make this trick less effective.
> >
> >        I don't see this sense in OED, nor the word in Jonatha/on's
> >dictionaries.
> >
> >        My apologies for having missed "bracer" in Jonathon's
> >Cassell's.
> >
> >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
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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