The 1909 volume Passing English of the Victorian Era by J. Redding Ware has a wealth of slang terms from that era. One entry even includes musical notation for please mother open the door, a slang phrase that was sung, rather than spoken, to express admiration for a woman. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Victorian English”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, a show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I’m having more fun lately with a 1909 volume called Passing English of the Victorian Era by J. Redding Ware.
Ooh, intriguing.
The thing that caught my eye was there was a dictionary entry there that included musical notation.
Oh, interesting.
You know, a treble clef and a staff and notes.
It’s this little time capsule of a particular expression that was used in those days.
And the expression is, please, mother, open the door.
Why?
Well, the definition is expressed admiration of a passing girl, always said in a high monotone except door, which is uttered in a minor falling third.
And they actually write out the music for it, which is why I can sing to you what men would say when young women walked past.
So we’re talking about a fairly sophisticated kind of catcalling, right?
A minor thirties, yes.
These aren’t crude people, you know, on this corner.
These are men in bowlers, right?
Right.
Maybe tipping their hats or something and saying, please, mother, open the door.
I thought that was the coolest thing in this dictionary with these yellowed pages.
So it basically means mothers let your daughters out.
I want to go on a date with her or something like that.
I think that’s what it is.
But it’s just this tantalizing little keyhole view of, you know, flirtation.
That’s super cool.
I love that.
I know.
Isn’t that great?
Well, I love the idea that now we can go back to some of the earliest recordings and have that similar feeling where we have recordings that are 100 years old.
Yes.
And audio and video.
Yeah.
And so at some point in our future, somebody will look at our stuff and hear our voices and say, that’s how it was.
Isn’t that cool?
That’s how they were.
Yeah.
The world was different.
I’m going to share some more of those terms from the Victorian.
Outstanding.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we’ll put a link on our website to the dictionary.
Great.
Because it’s really cool.
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