A mangle is an old device for squeezing water from laundry. In 19th-century England, this word figured in the discourteous catchphrase Has your mother sold her mangle? The question implies that the person addressed has to make ends meet by selling their mother’s mangle. For a while, youngsters would run up to strangers and shout this phrase just to be annoying, but this not-so-clever taunt was short-lived. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Has Your Mother Sold Her Mangle?”: a 19th-Century Insult That Suggests Poverty”
I just came across this saying that was briefly popular in nineteenth century London, and it’s, Has your mother sold her mangle?
Is this just one of those non-securative phrases?
Yeah, it’s, I mean, a mangle was a device for squeezing water from laundry.
I’ve seen it.
I’ve used one.
Yeah.
Ants got one well into the eighties, yeah, in the yard.
Oh, well, OED describes has your mother sold her mangle as a discourteous catchphrase, and it suggests that the person you’re talking to has to make ends meet by selling their mother’s mangle.
And it’s something that kids especially would run up to strangers and say on the street, apparently, just to be annoying.
It’s sort of the six, seven of the nineteenth century, I think.
I wonder if there’s another layer to that, and that is the assumption that not only did she have to sell her mango, but she had to take in laundry to make ends of meat in the Yeah, first yeah.
It really is about not having much in the way of financial resources.
But a surprising saying.
But apparently, it was quite widespread in London in the nineteenth century for a while, and then fortunately, it left.
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