Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A bit of information - - about "Goody Two-Shoes" and a puzzling question about "orange pejoe and pekoe-cut black tea"..

Hearing someone put down recenyly as a "Goody Two-Shoes", I did an ngram search, thinking I could find its origin.  I could have looked in dictionary, I guess, but I tend to think of it for words, not for idioms.

John Newbery, for whom the award was named, founded the kiddie lit genre.  Moveable type and the industrial revolution made cheap books possible, and his six-pence books for children were a tremendous labor-saving device, much like TV in the 1950s, although books don't generally make you stupid.  Nobody is sure who wrote it, but the best seller of over 500 Newbery books told of the Meanwell kids, Maehoiry in partricular, whose feet got cold because she had only one shoe.  A rich guy from London decided to have his cobbler make a pair for Marjory, and she was so thrilled and proud that at first, she showed them off, and would say "Goody! Two shoes".  She was a great kid who learned to read, then taught  other poor kids who couldn't afford shoes.  She bought a raven for 1c from a bunch of boys to protect it; they had been throwing stones at it.  Soon she was given other animals in need, and her room became a strange menagerie. She was accused of being a witch by someone who saw all the animals, but not convicted.  When the scgoolmistress had to reture, she got thart job, and in the end, she married a gent she was nursing.  

The original "goody two shoes" wasn't a "goody two-shoes at all, just a goody, as one dictionary put it, that being a scottish term for a goodwife, which appears to be different than what Julianna Margulies plays, not better, not worse, just different.

While I was doing this research, I went to refill my glass of iced tea, noting that the new brand I'm buying is a lot tastier than what I've had before.  I've always had Red Rose, and always thought Lipton was chalky, but I found that Salada, made by the same Canadian company (owned by Lever) as Red Rose, tastes identical, and costs a lot less (perhaps because Red Rose includes a figurine in the box.)  Then I found that the tea at Aldi, and then the off-brand at Save-A-Lot that doesn't have tags or strings, was industinguishable, and was cheaper still.  Finally, I ordered Brimly Estate tea from a restaurant supply house.  This is the tea I found so flavorful, cheapest of all, and yet all these teas are labeled "orange pekoe and pekoe-cut black tea".  What the heck does THAT mean?

Checking dictionaries, it appears that orange pekoe is grown one place, and pekoe, a rougher tea leaf, comes from somewhere else.  Tea pages, on the other hand, say that Pekoe simply means the whole leaf is used.  So what does "pekoe-cut" mean?  I thought for a while that they chopped up black tea, and orange pekoe and pekoe were names for how finely the tea was chopped, but now I don't know.  The Wikipedia article has lots of references but they all seem to 404.  I find others that talk about the dizzying labeling system for grades of tea.  I bet if you tried to buy "Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe One", they'd charege extra just for the exta ink used to label the product.

It's probably just that the tea is fresher, I suppose, not sitting for six months in the fricery warehouse, then eight months on the shelf at Kroger,  Restaurant supply houses don't carry a zillion brands and sizes, meaning that they tyrn over their inventory quickly.

Oh, well, time to brew another gallon; even more rain is being forecast "for tea days"  Goody goody!