Word: gentlewomen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...their prudery, the Victorians were considerably more willing than modern men to discuss ideas-such as social distinctions, morality and death -that have become almost unmentionable. Nineteenth century gentlewomen whose daughters had "limbs" instead of suggestive "legs" did not find it necessary to call their maids "housekeepers," nor did they bridle at referring to "upper" or "lower" classes within society. Rightly or wrongly, the Victorian could talk without embarrassment about "sin," a word that today few but clerics use with frequency or ease. It is even becoming difficult to find a doctor, clergyman or undertaker (known as a "mortician...
PURCELL: DIDO & AENEAS (Angel). If the English had not loved spoken drama so well, Henry Purcell might have started a glorious operatic tradition in his country. As it was, Dido and Aeneas is Purcell's only opera, which he composed for a 1689 performance by the "Young Gentlewomen" at Josias Priest's School in Chelsea. This album boasts a more distinguished roster of singers, including Victoria de los Angeles, but Purcell's baroque is as airy and clear as a birdsong in an English meadow-and sounds just as repetitious. Sir John Barbirolli conducts with vivacity...
Powers of Bitchery. As Elizabeth Bowen's new novel (her first since 1955) opens, the little girls have become sad-eyed, sixtyish English gentlewomen. Dicey is now Dinah Delacroix, a handsome if slightly dotty widow who lives on her Somerset estate in equivocal intimacy with a cross-eyed, 19-year-old Maltese manservant. Remembering the buried treasure chest, she rounds up her long-lost friends and informs them that it is time to dig up the box and rediscover their old happiness...
...another side of the social life, a Cambridge gentlewomen advertised that "Harvard '09 men agreed it was 'remarkable' to learn the WALTZ in three (private) lessons." For formal wear, it was the "Mac Hurdle" full dress shirt: Absolutely no bulge," Mac Hurdle claimed; the patented band and bosom does...