Talk:Seamstresses' Guild

Annotation

The Rollings Stones song: that's hardly an annotation, is it? I don't know the details, but "seamstress" as a euphemism for prostitute and with corresponding jokes about needles is bound to go back much further.

An interesting note in that line may be that a dutch word for having sex is "naaien" - the same word as "to sew".

Found this btw: http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/ugoretz1.html

In the spring of 1843, the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission shocked the public with horror stories of the cruel and heartless exploitation of needlewomen in the backrooms and garrets of London. The public was appalled to learn that so many "delicate" young women lived, worked, and died, in such miserable conditions, and what was worse for Victorian sensibilities, that some resorted to or succumbed to prostitution.

Soon after the publication of the Second Report, the distressed seamstress became something of a cause celebre. The public was barraged with newspaper articles, pamphlets, novels, short stories, poetry (the most famous of which is Thomas Hood's "Song of the Shirt"), and plays, many of which utilized the information on needlewomen "uncovered" by the government's commissioners (often quoting it verbatim and at length).

--Sanity 11:12, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Brilliant! There's a current programme on BBC Tv called "Balderdash and Piffle" that makes a surprisingly interesting half-hour on the derivation of words and slang phrases - the challenge is to establish the earliest written usage in English for often obscure slang phrases. This talk page is starting to go the same way!

So I don't mind the Rolling Stones usage (the Between the Buttons LP of 1966, performing a far older blues standard) sinking into obscurity next to proven 19th Century references!--AgProv 11:55, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

The lyrics of Walkin' The Dog are based on an old children's skipping rhyme (Mary Mack.) The not-so-old standard was recorded in 1963 by Rufus Thomas.--Old Dickens 15:33, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

seamstressing is older than even the blues...

This is entirely true. Threadneedle Street in London (now very rich indeed) was known as Gropecunte Lane in the fourteenth century. If ever there was a euphemism that has stood the test of time, threading the needle certainly has. --Knmatt 18:48, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

And that's how the old lady of Threadneedle Street started?--Old Dickens 20:58, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Wow, says a lot for the banking profession (second oldest prefession? Altough Pterry mentions somewhere that the oldest profession of all is in fact that of flint-knapper)...--AgProv 10:28, 5 June 2007 (CEST)

Well I wanted to add this citation

But it doesnt work and trying to add the template from wikipedia kinda blew up in my face. Hope I havent messed things up! Sorry JasonWard 16:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

About the translation of the "motto"

Hello everybody. I was guessing whether the translation of "NIL VOLVPTI, SINE LVCRE" belongs to Pratchett or not. If the latter option is correct, it comes to me that in Latin Lucrum, lucri is better translated by profit, earning, gain. The actual translation gives me the idea that: "Pleasure is not obtained without pay", "No pleasure, without money" - so "Without paying, you don't get pleasure". However since in English there is a saying: "No pain, no gain", "No gain, without pain", I'd rather translate NIL VOLVPTI, SINE LVCRE with "No pleasure, without gain". As to say that there doesn't exist a kind of pleasure in which someone doesn't gain something. From Seamstresses' Guild's point of view it means "money in change of pleasure" - while the "customer"'s point of view is "pleasure in change of money". Moreover I'd like to point out that, while VOLVPTI doesn't exist in Latin (although it's Pratchett's witty aim to let Morporkians write in Dog Latin!!!), the term itself recalls the second declension masculine plural (ending in -i), so VOLVPTI should be read more like "pleased" ("pleasured"?). If what I have written above is too over-elaborate, at least I hope I gave a good summary of Pratchett's using of conceptual shades even while inventing dog latin! Pwill 04:18, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Better mottoes: NIL GAUDIUM SINE PRAEMI . . . NIL VOLUPTAS SINE LUCRI . . . NON COSENTIO GRATIS ....--Old Dickens 01:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)