No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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CerintheM
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No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by CerintheM »

Hi all,

I am new to reading about Lizzie and new to reading these boards, so forgive me if this is something everyone here knows already. I've read several books now that say when Lizzie said the blood spot came from fleas, this was a euphemism for her period. Does anyone know the original source on this?

Here's the thing: I can't find ANY record that "fleas" or "flea-bites" is a euphemism for menstruation -- except in sites talking about Lizzie! I checked the OED. Nothing. I've checked dictionaries that record historical slang. Nope. A contemporary dictionary for slang written in 1905. None of them mention it. Then I checked Google n-gram viewer for all mentions in books of "flea" from 1830-1939. I looked through the first 20 pages of Google results - there wasn't a single usage of "flea" or "flea-bite" to mean menstruation. There were some idioms involving "flea" (e.g., "send him away with a flea in his ear"), and "flea-bite" seemed to be an idiom for something or someone that was small/minor but annoying.

(Euphemisms for periods I did see from that era: terms, courses, nature, flower-time or flowers, domestic afflictions (!))

Was this a hyper-local euphemism, maybe? If it wasn't, I really think Lizzie meant literal flea-bites. In which case, I wonder if it was normal for a woman of Lizzie's class to have fleas...?

Would appreciate any thoughts.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by InterestedReader »

It wasn't a euphemism for the menses!

But if anyone can show it used in that sense, please do so. It would throw a whole new light on John Donne.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by CerintheM »

Literally (not euphemistically!) LOLing at John Donne!

I wonder, then, how the belief about "fleas" being a euphemism got started. I've seen it stated in more than one book.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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Hello! I'd assumed this to be a modern error but on looking I'm surprised to find it's in print as long ago as Lincoln. It probably originates with Lincoln. When she's onto her 'What-Only-Women-Understand' noise she can write any amount of tosh to fill the page. It's like when she hazes the reader with sophistry about ladies' dress at the time - it's complete rubbish but unless you have real expertise in historical clothing you might believe her. Because Lincoln was a professional author, who could write very well in places. So she has a persuasive and pervasive influence.

Lincoln makes the 'pinpoint spot' of blood found on Lizzie's petticoat, into menstrual blood:

'At the inquest, in a throw-away line with no follow-up, Knowlton had asked Lizzie if she knew how a bloodstain could have got on her underskirt. She replied, "I have fleas." The answer was quaintly dictated by a Victorian delicacy which the Tampax advertisements now make it hard for us to believe in; but it was, in fact, more convincing than that which her defense later offered, in refined circumlocutions, to the jury. And a female jury would have known it.'

There you are. Lizzie would never have got off, had the jurors been women. Women know about frocks. Women know about periods.

Well as to the latter, yes we do. The 'pinpoint spot' of blood was deemed by the 1893 Science guys to be on the top or outer aspect of the fabric. Whichever side, it doesn't suggest menstrual blood and nowhere in Lizzie Borden's Inquest responses does she claim it was. She at length allows it might match a flea-bite:

Inquest p. 87
Q. Did you give to the officer the same skirt you had on the day of the tragedy?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you know whether there was any blood on the skirt?
A. No, sir.
Q. Assume that there was, do you know how it came there?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you any explanation of how it might come there?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you know there was any blood on the skirt you gave them?
A. No, sir.
Q. Assume that there was, can you give any explanation of how it came there, on the dress skirt?
A. No, sir.
Q. Assume that there was, can you suggest any reason how it came there?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you offered any?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you ever offered any?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you said it came from flea bites?
A. On the petticoats I said there was a flea bite. I said it might have been. You siad [sic] you meant the dress skirt.
Q. I did. Have you offered any explanation how that came there?
A. I told those men that were at the house that I had had fleas; that is all.
Q. Did you offer that as an explanation?
A. I said that was the only explanation that I knew of.
Q. Assuming that the blood came from the outside, can you give any explanation of how it came there?
A. No, sir.
Q. You cannot now?
A. No, sir.

As you can see, Knowlton makes no 'throw-away lines' without 'follow-up’. He's harrying the defendant.

"I had had fleas..' Lizzie had had fleas in time prior to that question of August the 4th. Not current and ongoing fleas or fleas needing Feminax.

And it's her petticoat. I haven't yet read Robert Sullivan's book but he's accused of moving this pinhead speck of blood to the outer or dress skirt, and likewise having Lizzie plead the curse.

If you look elsewhere in the Trial you find the menfolk in fits of harrumphing whenever they get near the topic of sanitary napkins. *Oh the doctor saw....that...and...it's...quite all right.* The social mores of the time had them far too nesh to examine the one place they did find bloody clouts. So, no, this idea of Lizzie admitting in court to 'flea-bite' menstruation has simply been repeated so often as to take on the status of fact, but it's an ahistorical error. A brush with a flea wasn't half so appalling as the body's reproductive apparatus.

People say Lizzie Borden was an inept liar... but at times she seems so stubbornly nailed to literalism she won't take the easiest flight of fancy. When she goes to her room to "baste on a tape" she could so easily have pricked her finger.

It's sometimes odd what goes into the popular account of this crime and what is rejected. A lower-middle-class woman of 1892 turns to menstruation to explain a blood-dot - only she didn't and wouldn't, but the notion is piquant. Meanwhile the Fall River mill workforce walked out en masse, on strike, in response to the murders. Now this I read elsewhere in a learned sociology work :smile: I've still no idea if it's true because whenever I've searched, there's no mention of it.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by twinsrwe »

Hello, CerintheM, welcome to the forum.

Interested is correct; Lizzie’s fleas being her menstrual period originated with Victoria Lincoln’s book titled, A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. Kat posted the same information that Interested did, in the thread titled, Unintentional Funnies: http://tinyurl.com/zrphenf (Within this thread, Kat provided us with a link to a discussion about Lizzie period, 2002, unfortunately, that link is in the archives, which we are not able to get into at this point in time. I have notified Stefani twice regarding this issue, but have not heard back from her as to whether it can be fixed. :sad: )

Interested, thank you for posting Lizzie’s Inquest testimony. Lizzie never said that the tiny blood spot on her petticoat was from her period, she said it might have been a flea bite, because she had had fleas. I believe Lizzie was telling the truth. Testimony from Dr. Dolan clearly indicates that it is impossible for the tiny blood spot found on Lizzie’s skirt, to be from menstrual blood.

Preliminary Hearing of Dr. Dolan, who was being questioned by Mr. Adams; page 168:

Q. What was it, a dress skirt and an under white skirt?
A. Yes sir and her waist.
Q. Did you examine them?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Did you find some blood on them?
A. One blood spot on the skirt.
Q. How big was it?
A. The size of a good pin head.
Q. That is on the white underskirt?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Do you know whether it came from without, in or from inside out?
A. From without, in.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Simply because the meshes of the cloth on the outside were filled with blood, and it had hardly penetrated on the inside.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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twinsrwe wrote:
Testimony from Dr. Dolan clearly indicates that it is impossible for the tiny blood spot found on Lizzie’s skirt, to be from menstrual blood..
Well, to be stringent, he doesn't indicate it clearly or otherwise. He's not being asked if it were menstrual blood. He wouldn't be able to determine menstrual blood if he were being asked. Dolan testifies the blood landed on the uppermost fibres - that is, the external side of the garment. It's perfectly 'possible' for menstrual blood to land there! It's just that menstrual blood wasn't the issue.
(Oh that's an unfortunate wording.)

Preliminary Hearing of Dr. Dolan, page 168:

Q. What was it, a dress skirt and an under white skirt?
A. Yes sir and her waist.
Q. Did you examine them?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Did you find some blood on them?
A. One blood spot on the skirt.
Q. How big was it?
A. The size of a good pin head.
Q. That is on the white underskirt?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Do you know whether it came from without, in or from inside out?
A. From without, in.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Simply because the meshes of the cloth on the outside were filled with blood, and it had hardly penetrated on the inside.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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twinsrwe wrote:
Interested is correct; Lizzie’s fleas being her menstrual period originated with Victoria Lincoln’s book titled, A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. Kat posted the same information that Interested did, in the thread titled, Unintentional Funnies: http://tinyurl.com/zrphenf (Within this thread, Kat provided us with a link to a discussion about Lizzie period, 2002, unfortunately, that link is in the archives....
Your link takes us to 2005! Kat likewise has the Lincoln source and the Inquest sequence which, given the topic, is to be expected. I've no idea how to access archives or posts from 2002 or that mysterious resource called the 'Privy'.

Here's spaniel George propping up the Lincoln book - I've actually read the darned thing. And I write my own posts.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by CerintheM »

Thanks! Exciting to find a potential origin. Sloppy of later book writers just to repeat it, though!

I searched the forum before I posted my question, but don't recall coming across Kat's entry. Maybe I skipped it because it happened partway through a thread on a different topic.

That portion of testimony itself gives us no reason to think it's not literal. The testimony implies that she already gave the flea bite explanation, perhaps to police:

Q. Have you said it came from flea bites?
A. On the petticoats I said there was a flea bite. I said it might have been. You siad [sic] you meant the dress skirt.

But I don't see it in the witness statements.

Given what Kat talked to a woman in her 80s from the Massachusetts who was unfamiliar, that it doesn't appear in the OED, the multiple slang dictionaries, AND the N-gram search, I think we can pretty safely assume it was indeed not a euphemism.

I guess when Lincoln wrote, the general impression about Victorians was that they were so buttoned-up and prudish. Still a general theory of the Victorians, I suppose. Anyway, we know Lizzie explained she was menstruating at the time of the murders, Lincoln saw testimony about blood and the mention of fleas, and just assumed it HAD to be a Victorian cutesy-pie euphemism.

I'm curious if having fleas would have been an embarrassing thing for a woman to admit at the time, or if everyone just accepted that was one of those things you get.

Re: strikes: I just read Joseph Conforti's book (which repeated the flea-bites thing and started me down this rabbit hole). It focused primarily on ethnicity and class. He talks about many mill strikes occurring generally in Fall River at the time, but it seemed in response to low wages and poor working conditions. For what it's worth, he doesn't talk about strikes in response to the murders. However, he does talk about the fact that Yankees thought Lizzie couldn't have done it because Yankee Christian women weren't violent, didn't have the physical strength, etc. The Irish community balked at this portrayal of ethnic essentialism. Much more importantly, it seems, they balked at the fact that the largely Irish police force was depicted by Lizzie's lawyers and pro-Lizzie media as bumbling fools.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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InterestedReader wrote:
twinsrwe wrote:
Testimony from Dr. Dolan clearly indicates that it is impossible for the tiny blood spot found on Lizzie’s skirt, to be from menstrual blood..
Well, to be stringent, he doesn't indicate it clearly or otherwise. He's not being asked if it were menstrual blood. He wouldn't be able to determine menstrual blood if he were being asked. Dolan testifies the blood landed on the uppermost fibres - that is, the external side of the garment. It's perfectly 'possible' for menstrual blood to land there! It's just that menstrual blood wasn't the issue.
(Oh that's an unfortunate wording.) ...
Oh my goodness, Interested, I did not say that Dr. Dolan was being asked if the blood spot was menstrual blood. You have every right to disagree with me, but is it really necessary to be condescending when doing so?
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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Yes isn't it interesting about that strong Irish presence in the force... Is that correct? the force was largely Irish? Something someone wrote on this forum tends to stick in my head, a loose statement that 'If they could have pinned it on Bridget they would.' And I'm always wondering how justified a view that is. There seems to have been a veritable stronghold of an Irish community in Fall River, and it was protecting Bridget Sullivan. At a crucial moment it's Officer Harrington who knows where to put a hand on Bridget when she's lodging with Patrick Harrington on Division Street - there's a high probability one Harrington was cousin to the other - while journalists are patently fearful entering the Irish quarter to try and interview her... But hmm. If the Fall River police were largely Irish, praps things were a mite less intimidating for Bridget.

I don't know how déclassé was the flea. We live in sterile times. Cats are flea-carousels and there was a cat at 92, some say. Lizzie was doing social work with the poor - don't know how much of it. Perhaps even 'Fall River aristocracy' got fleas.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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twinsrwe wrote:
Oh my goodness, Interested, I did not say that Dr. Dolan was being asked if the blood spot was menstrual blood.
Then I failed to understand your meaning.
How does Dolan's testimony 'clearly indicate' it 'impossible' for the blood to be menstrual?
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by CerintheM »

As Conforti tells it, the (largely) Irish police were better positioned than most (including the largely Yankee jury) to see Lizzie as a potential murderer, because they didn't have the same sentimental ideas about Victorian Yankee womanhood. It doesn't seem they (that is, the police) ever took Bridget all that seriously as a suspect. Actually, Conforti doesn't say this, but I wonder if the police's negative reaction to Lizzie's stoicism after the murders might have been partially due to another culture clash - they were turned off by the stiff upper lip that the Yankees valued. And when they realized Lizzie called Bridget "Maggie," that might have been offensive to them.

One incident Conforti relates, which is interesting:

"At first [Bridget] feared that Lizzie’s lawyers would implicate her in the crime. After all, she was a lowly Irish immigrant, an unladylike 'girl.' Ethnicity, class, and gender were arrayed against her. Sympathetic Irish police and other investigators quickly and soundly eliminated her as a suspect. Even Lizzie stood up for her innocence.

After Lizzie was charged, however, the president of the Board of Aldermen, John Beattie, seemed to question why the police had not arrested Bridget. The Fall River Globe quoted Beattie on the contrast between Lizzie and her hired help: 'We hate to believe, we find it hard to think, that a girl brought up as well and with the intellectual associations she has had would commit such a crime as this. I have always wondered why the servant girl was not arrested.' The Irish community was thrown into an uproar, and Beattie denied that he had made such a statement."
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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CerintheM wrote:As Conforti tells it, the (largely) Irish police were better positioned than most (including the largely Yankee jury) to see Lizzie as a potential murderer, because they didn't have the same sentimental ideas about Victorian Yankee womanhood. It doesn't seem they (that is, the police) ever took Bridget all that seriously as a suspect. Actually, Conforti doesn't say this, but I wonder if the police's negative reaction to Lizzie's stoicism after the murders might have been partially due to another culture clash - they were turned off by the stiff upper lip that the Yankees valued. And when they realized Lizzie called Bridget "Maggie," that might have been offensive to them.

One incident Conforti relates, which is interesting:

"At first [Bridget] feared that Lizzie’s lawyers would implicate her in the crime. After all, she was a lowly Irish immigrant, an unladylike 'girl.' Ethnicity, class, and gender were arrayed against her. Sympathetic Irish police and other investigators quickly and soundly eliminated her as a suspect. Even Lizzie stood up for her innocence.
Lizzie was the first to proclaim her innocent. On the day. Within the hour.
I think it's probably a bit more complicated than it's painted, the sociology of the situation, but 'sympathetic Irish police' is certainly fascinating. (I still don't understand myself why Bridget was so quickly eliminated.) Also the idea they distrusted Lizzie's demeanour - undemonstrative, prickly - one picks that up kinda between the lines and somewhere in the air.
CerintheM wrote:After Lizzie was charged, however, the president of the Board of Aldermen, John Beattie, seemed to question why the police had not arrested Bridget. The Fall River Globe quoted Beattie on the contrast between Lizzie and her hired help: 'We hate to believe, we find it hard to think, that a girl brought up as well and with the intellectual associations she has had would commit such a crime as this. I have always wondered why the servant girl was not arrested.' The Irish community was thrown into an uproar, and Beattie denied that he had made such a statement."
Yes, and if he was guiltless of those choice words, the Globe fabricated them for a receptive readership. It's surprising how much more of this there'd be over the coming years. The press raked the coals with stories such as the New York detective who arrives around 1900 with 'proof' Sullivan's man-friend was the killer and this after a thorough investigation of Bridget's 'background'. A Patrick Harrington of Fall River committed a rather spectacular crime in 1905 - highly-organised theft on a big scale - and up came his kinship with Bridget, in the papers!

I suppose everyone had a distorted view of Lizzie Borden from the beginning - her gentility was concocted by the 'press - and Lizzie is romanced even now, in popular culture. Bridget becomes illiterate and doltish. I've slogged through Census records and pretty much all Bridget's generation of immigrants could read and write - illiteracy was very unusual...

What is the title of the Conforti book, please? And um... what was really meant by 'Yankee'? coz I'm never sure.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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InterestedReader wrote:
twinsrwe wrote:
Oh my goodness, Interested, I did not say that Dr. Dolan was being asked if the blood spot was menstrual blood.
Then I failed to understand your meaning.
How does Dolan's testimony 'clearly indicate' it 'impossible' for the blood to be menstrual?
Well, perhaps I should have said: The testimony from Dr. Dolan clearly indicates, to me, that the tiny blood spot found on Lizzie’s skirt was from an outside source such as a flea bite. In other words, that tiny blood spot could not have been from menstrual blood as Victoria Lincoln would like for us to believe.
InterestedReader wrote:
twinsrwe wrote:
Interested is correct; Lizzie’s fleas being her menstrual period originated with Victoria Lincoln’s book titled, A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. Kat posted the same information that Interested did, in the thread titled, Unintentional Funnies: http://tinyurl.com/zrphenf (Within this thread, Kat provided us with a link to a discussion about Lizzie period, 2002, unfortunately, that link is in the archives....
Your link takes us to 2005! Kat likewise has the Lincoln source and the Inquest sequence which, given the topic, is to be expected. I've no idea how to access archives or posts from 2002 or that mysterious resource called the 'Privy'.

Here's spaniel George propping up the Lincoln book - I've actually read the darned thing. And I write my own posts.
Yes, the link I posted is for the thread titled, Unintentional Funnies. I have contacted Stefani for the criteria that newer members need in order to access Lizzie's Privy.

BTW, I did not say that you didn't write your own post, all I said was that Kat posted the same information that you did.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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The Conforti book is called "Lizzie Borden on Trial: Murder, Ethnicity, and Gender." And by Yankee, he seemed to mean "of British-but-settled-in-the-US-for-many-years descent."
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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Thanks. On Amazon it has mainly favourable reviews.

You will laugh but 'Yankee' is a difficult one to gauge... It's appearing often in the sources but I wasn't sure just what meaning it carried. I think most Brits have a vague sense it meant Northerners in the Civil War! So it's more a traceable pedigree thing.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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It depends on context. Within New England, it means a local who is of British descent, probably who could trace their roots back to pre-revolutionary times. To a Southerner, all Northerners are Yankees, so yes, in the Civil War, the Northern side are the Yankees. To people from other countries, all Americans are Yankees, as in "Yanqui go home!"

The OED is messed up on this, by the way. It says for first def. "A nickname for a native or inhabitant of New England, or, more widely, of the northern States generally; during the War of Secession applied by the Confederates to the soldiers of the Federal army." As an aside, the "War of Secession" is a phrase used by Southerners, NOT Northerners, because it suggests the war was justified and the South was a legitimate separate country. Odd to see it crop up there! Second, it doesn't capture that recent immigrants to NE would not be considered Yankees.

I really just thought about this now: American sports teams are named usually after something tough or fearsome or some local characteristic. Carolina Panthers, Baltimore Orioles. Two of New York's teams are named after ethnic groups that were considered the most upper class - the Yankees, and the Knicks (i.e., Knickerbockers, i.e. descendants of colonial Dutch settlers in New York, such as the Roosevelt family). Probably very small percentage of Yankees (narrowly construed) and Knickerbockers either on the team or among their fans!
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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Thank-you, Elizabeth.
Yes, it doesn't help that during the Second World War all Americans billeted here were known as "Yanks". It was used far more in friendly fashion than disparagingly, and it's a persistent word, even in British idiom today.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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CerintheM wrote:Actually, Conforti doesn't say this, but I wonder if the police's negative reaction to Lizzie's stoicism after the murders might have been partially due to another culture clash - they were turned off by the stiff upper lip that the Yankees valued.
This is Officer Harrington, from the Witness Statements. One doesn't see it quoted so much. He's up in Lizzie's room at about 12.25: -


'Miss Russell was very pale, and much agitated, which she showed by short sharp breathing and wringing her hands. She spoke not a word.

'Lizzie stood by the foot of the bed, and talked in the most calm and collected manner; her whole bearing was most remarkable under the circumstances. There was not the least indication of agitation, no sign of sorrow or grief, no lamentation of the heart, no comment on the horror of the crime, and no expression of a wish that the criminal be caught. All this, and something that, to me, is indescribable, gave birth to a thought that was most revolting. I thought, at least, she knew more than she wished to tell.

'I arrived at the house about 12.15 or 12.20 M. The conversation with Lizzie was about five minutes later.

'She was dressed in a striped house wrapper, full waist, and caught on the side by a bright red ribbon, which was tied in a bow in front. The stripes were on the pink shade, and between them was a dark figure.'

'I don't like that girl,' he said a little later to the Marshal.

Lizzie's unemotional demeanour provokes the 'revolting thought' in Harrington. (His eye for dress is famous; perhaps he's also finding her red-beribboned confection a bit of a surprise.)

I have a brand new pair of Japanese steel dressmaking scissors. 12" blades, super-sharp. Yesterday, by accident, I chopped off the end of one finger. There was blood everywhere, down my clothes, all over the floor... We instantly had a cloth clamped to it but blood went pumping all over the place. And I was thinking what a lively, unpredictable thing blood is...

If I were premeditating murder I wouldn't want to be factoring in too much blood - it's so hard to contain and control.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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It was, in fact, quite common for homes at the time to have fleas whether they owned a pet or not. The same goes for bed bugs.
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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Here the larger cinemas were known as 'fleapits' :grin: and that name stuck until quite recent history.
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SallyG
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by SallyG »

Bedbugs were very common back then. I remember my grandmother would come to our house to visit, and afterwards my father would complain of fleas in his chair, where she had been sitting. She had pets, we did not. So I'm sure, especially back then, fleas were easy to pick up on your person. I picked up bedbugs a couple of years ago when traveling and it was, honest to GOD, the worst experience of my life!! Half my body, where I had been bitten, was red and puffy, and the itch was unbearable; like nothing I have ever experienced in my life! But apparently back then it did not affect people at all! She probably meant, literally, fleas!
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NancyDrew
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

Post by NancyDrew »

Nowadays if someone has fleas, it is usually embarrassing. I was always struck by Lizzie's boldness in stating "I have fleas." Was this not something she would have considered shameful? I thought she aspired to be so upper-class, to be one of the elites...perhaps things were very different back then?
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InterestedReader
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Re: No record of "fleas" as euphemism

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This advertisement ran in most American newspapers in 1898.
It's just one of many I've noticed where menstruation is called 'menstruation'.
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