A stepmother slice, according to a 1915 citation in the Dictionary of American Regional English, is a slice of bread that’s too thick to bite. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Stepmother Slice”
I was just paging through the Dictionary of American Regional English, which you know I am want to do, and I came across the term stepmother slice.
Stepmother slice. Yes, and I’m looking at a citation from 1915 that talks about the famous stepmother slice of bread that is too thick to bite.
There are references to it being thick. Too thick to bite. Yeah, stepmothers get a bad rap in a lot of languages.
Well, you know, in the animal kingdom, adults of both genders tend to kill the young that aren’t theirs. So, I mean, stepmothers, she’s like the classic character from folklore.
From folklore. And mythology, right? Yeah, in ancient Rome. Yeah, there were references to stepmothers.
But the stepmother, I was wondering if she took it for herself because the stepmother is perceived as like squandering resources on herself and her own offspring rather than the kids that she’s taken under her wing that were the children of some other woman.
It could be. It could be. It looks like there’s no real good explanation, although language is not really fair to stepmothers.
No, it’s not. I’m here to say. You know, the German word for pansy, Stiefmutterchen.
What’s that? Stepmother something? Yeah, little bitty stepmother.
Yeah, because some little pansies have what look like a frown on their… They have these little markings.
That’s not very nice. Well, language is our bread and butter.
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