"because I was set between him and another . . . ." Could "set" have been "sat"? I've noticed lately on British TV that where Americans would say "seated" the British say "sat": "I was sat next to him," instead of American "I was seated next to him." The same goes for "standing": instead of Anerican "I was standing by the gate," the British say "I was stood by the gate." But I digress. Is it possible that Sam was "sat," instead of "set," between him and another?
Regarding oysters and their frequent consumption in the diary, I wonder how they ate them, i.e., what, if anything, they ate them with, or on. Oysters are very popular where I live (New Orleans, USA), and here we are served with them as they lie on the halfshell (by law still slightly attached to prevent the fraud of serving jarred oysters as fresh). Then we take our little seafood fork and run the oyster through a bit of tomato-based "cocktail sauce" with horseradish in it, and then we plop it onto a saltine cracker, on which it is devoured with delight. When President Roosevelt visited New Orleans in the previous century he was served oysters by the then-mayor Robert Maestri, who during dinner asked Roosevelt, "How you like dem erstas?" So the "r" pronunciation of "oy" was prevalent in New Orleans way back then and even into the 1960s, when I arrived, and, as in Brooklyn NY, the word "toilet" was "terlet" and "boil" was "berl" and my friend Joyce was "Jerce." So, my question is this: without cutlery like seafood forks or transfer material like saltines, how did they eat them?
This is what interests me the most: "But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in it." Whoever the very talented boy was (I picture Leonardo Decaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" or McCauley Caulkin in "Home Alone"), he must not have made it to adulthood, or even adolescence, or Sam would have chanced on him in a play again.
Shrove Tuesday is Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday") where I live, in New Orleans, where it was celebrated on Feb. 13th this year (2024) with the usual great excess. There are no fritters or pancakes associated with it, only elaborate brioche king cakes, covered with purple, gold, and green icing, from Epiphany (Jan. 6) to Mardi Gras (a movable Tuesday). The next day, Wednesday, would be the "shrove" day here because that's when the faithful go to church and presumably are shriven, since the priest marks a cross of ashes with his finger on their foreheads.
Re: "We even use to-day "bravo...." for a great piece of work well rendered." Well said! I never realized this connection of Sam's frequent use of "brave" to "bravo."
Re above: ". . . verbs without a direct object, typically like verbs of motion. Eg "I hit him": him being the direct object. "I went to the pub", the pub being an indirect object." That passage includes the very strangest definition of an indirect object I have ever seen. An indirect object receives the action of a transitive verb, as in "I gave her the book," where "her" is the indirect object and "book" is the direct object. The phrase "to the pub" is not an indirect object; it is simply a prepositional phrase, with "pub" as the object of the preposition "to."
Glyn: "Monarchically speaking, it's always useful to have a spare - Prince Harry becoming king is still a possibility." And indeed, Prince Harry's recent book was entitled "Spare." But that was then, and this is now, and William is the Prince of Wales and has three children who come before Harry.
I love his wonderfully immediate description of how the music had transported him into an ecstasy like what he had felt at his first love for his wife. Re whether he is a good writer or not, this proves he is.
Re San Diego Sarah's "I'd love to hear Pepys' pithy comments on the old blind Parliamentarian [Milton] who somehow escaped being a Regicide," I agree that it's a shame that they didn't meet, but the fact that Milton was already in his 40s and blind by the time young Sam launched his diary in 1660 meant that Pepys wasn't likely to rub elbows with him while traipsing from tavern to tavern, and Sam also wasn't likely to bump into Milton at church, since Milton didn't believe in organized religion and possibly? used blindness as his reason to skip the compulsory attendance.
Regarding "Where? Does he have a commode in his chamber? . . . Or was he reduced to squatting over a chamber pot in his chamber?" I have wondered about this too, and I've read that church pews even had chamber pots in them, in case somebody needed to take a leak during a long sermon. Slight spoiler (Vincent started it!): Vincent mentions that at one time Sam entered a main room in his house and embarrassed an "eminent lady" who (as Sam wrote) was "doing something on the pot," so chamber pots seem to have been placed conveniently throughout the living spaces. That eminent lady was My Lady herself, Countess Sandwich, who was perennially pregnant and therefore undoubtedly needed access to chamber pots frequently.
Re Puccini: ". . . when he refers to Louisiana as a desert he meant a place with very few inhabitants." I'm happy to hear this and only wish every opera fan in New Orleans, where the first opera house in the United States was built (in the French Quarter, where I live), knew this, since the final scene of "Manon Lescaut" in the "desert" around bog-swampy below-sea-level New Orleans always elicits giggles and loud guffaws, as does the mention in "La Boheme" of "Gentilly," which is the name of a prominent section of New Orleans. (New Orleans is divided into "sections," like Carrollton, Uptown, Tremé, French Quarter.)
I wonder if there were also community "tenting grounds" for drying laundered sheets on frames set up like very large sandwich boards. The sheets would be stretched on the frames and held there by by "tenterhooks."
" . . . that it took a suitable (perhaps wittily chosen) classical author for the model of its style." Perhaps Sam's rusticated brother John was clever enough to choose the form of the banished Ovid's "Epistulae ex Ponto." Re Tonyel's reference to a "pine box," Tonyel must be a Southern US bro.
Re spitting, I recall reading somewhere that Queen Anne Boleyn had a gentlewoman seated beside her at meals whose duty it was to raise a napkin to hide the queen's face "if she list to spit."
TC, Admiral Nelson once used the tactic of staying at anchor for two years to prevent seamen from leaving the ship! Dick Wilson, Bligh was completely exonerated after the second mutiny, which was about rum in Australia. Also, he must have been a gentleman, since he retired as Vice-Admiral of the Blue.
Martin, You are absolutely right, as I see in the Jan 10 entry: "After dinner Will comes to tell me that he had presented my piece of plate to Mr. Coventry, who takes it very kindly, and sends me a very kind letter, and the plate back again; of which my heart is very glad." The antecedent of "he" in "he did not receive them," IS Coventry after all, and "receive" means "accept," after all. (I should have quit when I was ahead.)
Comments
Third Reading
About Friday 8 March 1660/61
LKvM • Link
"because I was set between him and another . . . ."
Could "set" have been "sat"?
I've noticed lately on British TV that where Americans would say "seated" the British say "sat": "I was sat next to him," instead of American "I was seated next to him." The same goes for "standing": instead of Anerican "I was standing by the gate," the British say "I was stood by the gate."
But I digress. Is it possible that Sam was "sat," instead of "set," between him and another?
About Tuesday 5 March 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Regarding oysters and their frequent consumption in the diary, I wonder how they ate them, i.e., what, if anything, they ate them with, or on.
Oysters are very popular where I live (New Orleans, USA), and here we are served with them as they lie on the halfshell (by law still slightly attached to prevent the fraud of serving jarred oysters as fresh).
Then we take our little seafood fork and run the oyster through a bit of tomato-based "cocktail sauce" with horseradish in it, and then we plop it onto a saltine cracker, on which it is devoured with delight.
When President Roosevelt visited New Orleans in the previous century he was served oysters by the then-mayor Robert Maestri, who during dinner asked Roosevelt, "How you like dem erstas?"
So the "r" pronunciation of "oy" was prevalent in New Orleans way back then and even into the 1960s, when I arrived, and, as in Brooklyn NY, the word "toilet" was "terlet" and "boil" was "berl" and my friend Joyce was "Jerce."
So, my question is this: without cutlery like seafood forks or transfer material like saltines, how did they eat them?
About Saturday 2 March 1660/61
LKvM • Link
This is what interests me the most:
"But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in it." Whoever the very talented boy was (I picture Leonardo Decaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" or McCauley Caulkin in "Home Alone"), he must not have made it to adulthood, or even adolescence, or Sam would have chanced on him in a play again.
About Tuesday 26 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Shrove Tuesday is Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday") where I live, in New Orleans, where it was celebrated on Feb. 13th this year (2024) with the usual great excess.
There are no fritters or pancakes associated with it, only elaborate brioche king cakes, covered with purple, gold, and green icing, from Epiphany (Jan. 6) to Mardi Gras (a movable Tuesday).
The next day, Wednesday, would be the "shrove" day here because that's when the faithful go to church and presumably are shriven, since the priest marks a cross of ashes with his finger on their foreheads.
About Saturday 23 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Re:
"We even use to-day "bravo...." for a great piece of work well rendered."
Well said! I never realized this connection of Sam's frequent use of "brave" to "bravo."
About Thursday 21 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Re above:
". . . verbs without a direct object, typically like verbs of motion. Eg "I hit him": him being the direct object. "I went to the pub", the pub being an indirect object."
That passage includes the very strangest definition of an indirect object I have ever seen. An indirect object receives the action of a transitive verb, as in "I gave her the book," where "her" is the indirect object and "book" is the direct object. The phrase "to the pub" is not an indirect object; it is simply a prepositional phrase, with "pub" as the object of the preposition "to."
About Monday 18 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Glyn:
"Monarchically speaking, it's always useful to have a spare - Prince Harry becoming king is still a possibility."
And indeed, Prince Harry's recent book was entitled "Spare."
But that was then, and this is now, and William is the Prince of Wales and has three children who come before Harry.
About Saturday 16 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
I love his wonderfully immediate description of how the music had transported him into an ecstasy like what he had felt at his first love for his wife. Re whether he is a good writer or not, this proves he is.
About Thursday 14 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Carolina: or van Marjenhof.
About Monday 11 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Re San Diego Sarah's "I'd love to hear Pepys' pithy comments on the old blind Parliamentarian [Milton] who somehow escaped being a Regicide," I agree that it's a shame that they didn't meet, but the fact that Milton was already in his 40s and blind by the time young Sam launched his diary in 1660 meant that Pepys wasn't likely to rub elbows with him while traipsing from tavern to tavern, and Sam also wasn't likely to bump into Milton at church, since Milton didn't believe in organized religion and possibly? used blindness as his reason to skip the compulsory attendance.
About Sunday 10 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Regarding "Where? Does he have a commode in his chamber? . . . Or was he reduced to squatting over a chamber pot in his chamber?"
I have wondered about this too, and I've read that church pews even had chamber pots in them, in case somebody needed to take a leak during a long sermon.
Slight spoiler (Vincent started it!): Vincent mentions that at one time Sam entered a main room in his house and embarrassed an "eminent lady" who (as Sam wrote) was "doing something on the pot," so chamber pots seem to have been placed conveniently throughout the living spaces. That eminent lady was My Lady herself, Countess Sandwich, who was perennially pregnant and therefore undoubtedly needed access to chamber pots frequently.
About Thursday 7 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Re Puccini: ". . . when he refers to Louisiana as a desert he meant a place with very few inhabitants."
I'm happy to hear this and only wish every opera fan in New Orleans, where the first opera house in the United States was built (in the French Quarter, where I live), knew this, since the final scene of "Manon Lescaut" in the "desert" around bog-swampy below-sea-level New Orleans always elicits giggles and loud guffaws, as does the mention in "La Boheme" of "Gentilly," which is the name of a prominent section of New Orleans. (New Orleans is divided into "sections," like Carrollton, Uptown, Tremé, French Quarter.)
About Tuesday 5 February 1660/61
LKvM • Link
I wonder if there were also community "tenting grounds" for drying laundered sheets on frames set up like very large sandwich boards. The sheets would be stretched on the frames and held there by by "tenterhooks."
About Wednesday 30 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
" . . . that it took a suitable (perhaps wittily chosen) classical author for the model of its style." Perhaps Sam's rusticated brother John was clever enough to choose the form of the banished Ovid's "Epistulae ex Ponto."
Re Tonyel's reference to a "pine box," Tonyel must be a Southern US bro.
About Monday 28 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Re spitting, I recall reading somewhere that Queen Anne Boleyn had a gentlewoman seated beside her at meals whose duty it was to raise a napkin to hide the queen's face "if she list to spit."
About Friday 25 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Twenty years later: "Well said, Chauncey."
About Wednesday 23 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Remember, "ate" was pronounced "et" back then, as it was still pronounced by my Deep South Grandmother Reeves in rural Mississippi in the 1950s.
About Monday 21 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
TC, Admiral Nelson once used the tactic of staying at anchor for two years to prevent seamen from leaving the ship!
Dick Wilson, Bligh was completely exonerated after the second mutiny, which was about rum in Australia. Also, he must have been a gentleman, since he retired as Vice-Admiral of the Blue.
About Monday 14 January 1660/61
LKvM • Link
Pepys admired "the houses so neat" when he was in Holland, too.
About Tuesday 25 December 1660
LKvM • Link
Martin,
You are absolutely right, as I see in the Jan 10 entry:
"After dinner Will comes to tell me that he had presented my piece of plate to Mr. Coventry, who takes it very kindly, and sends me a very kind letter, and the plate back again; of which my heart is very glad."
The antecedent of "he" in "he did not receive them," IS Coventry after all, and "receive" means "accept," after all.
(I should have quit when I was ahead.)