Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Amy. I am calling from Bozeman, Montana.
Bozeman, Montana. Welcome to the show. Happy to have you, Amy. What’s up?
Thank you.
Well, I had a question about a word that was used with some frequency in my family growing up, and I’ve never heard anyone else use this word or in this context.
There are five daughters in our family, so it was a pretty rowdy family, especially on a road trip. And that’s when this word would mostly come up when we were making noise in the back seat. One of my parents would say Coventry, which meant stop talking, be quiet. And of course, then it would initiate poking and elbows and whatever. And then the addition would be and fold your hands. Yeah. So that was always the thing. Coventry and fold your hands. And I don’t know anybody who’s ever used that word. I don’t even know if it is really a word. I had to say country or a city.
So Amy, just to recap here, your parents apparently were saints because they had five girls.
Yes. Okay. And when you were allowed, they would say Coventry, like the city in England?
Exactly.
And we all knew what it meant. I mean, we knew it meant to be quiet.
C-O-V-E-N-T-R-Y.
That’s how I would spell it, but it was never spelled.
-huh.
How interesting.
Amy, I have to ask if, besides being saints, were your parents history buffs or have a special fascination with the history of Britain?
No.
They were both scientists, actually.
Interesting.
And what was their origin, their ethnic origin?
Actually, both of them were half Irish, half French.
-huh.
Boy, that’s really interesting. Were they like recently Irish or distantly Irish?
No, not. Yeah, even their parents were not immigrants.
Okay. Although it could have been French-Canadian immigrants.
I see where you’re going with this, Martha, but we’re not hitting gold here.
Yeah, we’re not hitting gold.
But we can tell you that there is an expression to send to Coventry, and that means either to ignore or to ostracize. And Coventry, as Grant suggested, it’s a city in central England.
And one possible explanation for this expression, send to Coventry, meaning to ostracize, has to do with the English Civil War in the 17th century. Coventry was the place where captured royalist soldiers were sent to be held as prisoners. And then by the 18th century, to send to Coventry was thought of as this kind of informal punishment among army officers.
So if an officer behaved badly, but not badly enough for a court-martial, his fellow officers would be told to socially isolate him. And nobody was allowed to talk to him unless they were talking about official duties or they risked the same punishment. And later, if the offender made amends or endured his punishment, then the group would welcome him back and they would joke that he had just returned from a trip to Coventry, you know, like those prisoners in the English Civil War. So that may have to do with the idea of silencing kids by saying Coventry. You know, you’re going to be in big trouble.
That makes sense to me. That’s not far. It certainly was a form of punishment of sorts, although we didn’t particularly take it that way. We, you know, would laugh and, you know, behave to your extent.
Even though you were folding your hands.
And poking with elbows instead of fingers. Yeah.
Right.
Well, I have three sisters. I’m imagining worse than that.
I’m imagining headlocks and biting, the whole thing.
Noogies.
Noogies, yeah.
But there’s that whole thing how family language develops. And often family language comes from the slimmest of circumstances, the most unusual of moments. And sometimes it’s just a tale that you’ve been told that immediately catches your fancy. You know, it could have just come to them from a colleague. Or one never knows unless you talk to them.
I know, and I can’t do that anymore, which is sad.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, but you have those memories.
We do.
And we still use it. The sisters will still joke about that. So I don’t know if any of my sisters who do have kids use it on their kids.
Well, Coventry is not what we want from you, Amy. We’re so happy that you shared your memories and your story with us.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing with us. Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
I enjoy your program.
Take care of yourself. Appreciate your answering my question.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Well, obviously, we have to throw this out to everyone who’s listening. If you use Coventry or know of it being used in that way to silence or quiet children or loud people, let us know. The toll-free number is 877-929-9673. It’s always on. You can text it or call it. And if that’s not enough, there are a dozen ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.
