Satan in a Sunday hat

[Garson O'Toole]

Bonnie, here is a possible lead. A quick search for the variant "Satan
in his Sunday's best" matches a volume called "The Red Book" in 1820.

http://books.google.com/books?id=llVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22satan+in%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
The legends of Monkish Historians record sundry visits of his Satanic
Majesty to this world. Sometimes he abandoned his comfortable home in
search of amusement, or weary of monotonous torments, pursued pleasure
in various forms of malicious mischief, and not infrequently, like
other great personages, he made "tours of observation" to collect
materials for an eloquent Message, on his return to the assembled
Senate.

Although French poets and learned Greek professors have described,
with great unction, the amusing arcana of several diabolical
perambulations, the philosophers of our unbelieving days reject these
traditions as apocryphal, -  "La Diable Papefiguiere," and Satan "in
his Sunday's best," will therefore, I fear, avail but little to gain
credit for this narrative, of a certain infernal sporting tour in an
American commonwealth.
[End excerpt]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake
<b.taylorblake at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Satan in a Sunday hat
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is anyone here familiar with the expression "Satan in a Sunday hat"
> before its usage in HBO’s "True Blood"?  A colleague used it yesterday
> and couldn't remember where she picked it up, though she had the
> feeling that she had been familiar with it for a while.
>
> Here's how Urban Dictionary (entry dated 7 January 2010) defines it.
>
> ---------------------------
>
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Satan%20In%20A%20Sunday%20Hat
>
> When something that is really bad is disguised as something
> pretty/handsome/beautiful.
>
> First reference was made in a Season 2 episode of HBO's "True Blood"
> when Tara's intuitive cousin, Lafayette, referred to her mysterious
> then-lover, Eggs, as "Satan in a beautiful Sunday hat"
>
> [Example] "To victims of Ted Bundy would now probably refer to him as
> Satan in a Sunday Hat despite the fact that he had the eyes of crazed
> sonofabitch."
>
> ---------------------------
>
> Season 2 of "True Blood" aired in the summer of 2009.  The next season
> the same character asks of another, "Does the term 'Satan in a Sunday
> hat' mean anything to you?"
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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