Happy Birthday,
pholph!
May. 1st, 2008 09:44 amFor your present, here's today's Forgotten English (© Jeffrey Kacirk):
Not 'til Jerry Springer, anyway.
-The Gneech
hospitate
To reside under the roof of another.--Richard Coxe's Pronouncing Dictionary, 1813May Day/Labour Day
Feast of the Ascension
Moving Day in New York
The First of May is noted among the people of New York for bustle and change. … In every direction were carts and wagons laden with furniture. The streets were literally filled with chairs, tables, drawers, desks, carpets, &c. passing from one house to another to the great advantage of the carters, who find full employment and are on that day paid double charges. It is also not a little gratifying to New York gossips, who are allowed a peep into the lodgings of such strangers generally as have not permanent dwellings. … Many American women, we were told, occupy much of their leisure time about this period in prying into the abodes of foreigners to see if they are respectable and have their rooms well furnished. Americans could not have invented any domestic custom more inquisitorial, or which gives a readier access to the privacy of strangers.--Rev. Isaac Fidler's Observations in the United States and Canada, 1833
Not 'til Jerry Springer, anyway.
-The Gneech