I was somewhat taken aback while reading Peacock's Crotchet Castle (first published 1831) when I came across the following piece of dialogue:
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME
I cannot believe, that, speaking thus of him, you mean to take him at all
LADY CLARINDA
Oh! I am out of my teens. I have been very much in love; but now I am come to years of discretion, and must think, like other people, of settling myself advantageously.
Bingley
Given the period and the social position of the lady her comment seems fair enough. Or am I missing the point?
Bingley, was it the use of the word teens for that period that surprised you? It slightly surprises me, too, in that I've read a great deal of literature from the early 19th century, and I haven't noticed the use of the word teen to describe that period of youth.
This comes from Webster’s 1828 edition via One-Look:
TEENS, n. [from teen, ten.] The years of one's age reckoned by the termination teen. These years begin with thirteen, and end with nineteen. Miss is in her teens.
Surprising, but...
I think it's teenager (as a noun) rather than being in one's teens which is the more recent coinage.
I wonder how prevalent a use of 'teens' there was in the early 19th century? Was it a hip word for the times?
It was not the lady's sentiments that astonished me, but her expression of them, as WW surmises. The use of teens to mean the teenage years struck me as obviously being much older than I'd thought. If asked I would have said it dated back to the 1950s or 1960s at the most.
Bingley
the "teens" dates all the way back to 1673: Your poor young things, when they are once in the teens, think they shall never be married. (WYCHERLEY Gentl. Dancing Master). originally, teen was almost always used in the plural in phrases such as 'in or out of one's teens'.
"teen-ager" originated in the US around 1941: I never knew teen-agers could be so serious. (Pop. Sci. Monthly) [where 'teens' would have sufficed!]
In reply to:
originally, teen was almost always used in the plural in phrases such as 'in or out of one's teens'.
Yes, that's it exactly. I wouldn't be surprised to read in such literature 'out of one's teens,' but referring to the group as the 'teens' is what is a bit more surprising. I don't believe it was much used in formal literature, but I certainly shall begin to keep my ears open for it when reading. [I am an aural reader and I won't explain. Other aural readers will immediately know what I'm talking about here.]
Do aural and oral sound the same to you? 'Cause they do to me.
Do aural and oral sound the same
Depends on who's saying them.
aural sex
if you keep your ears open...
"Oh, my virgin ears!" she crossthreaded fridgidly.
Do aural and oral sound the same to you? Oh, no, not at all. Er, well, not if I need to be careful in pronunciation, that is.
Confess that if I knew for sure the hearer would know which one I meant, they'd prolly sound a lot alike. But the first syllable in aural is the sound-equivalent of awe, whereas the first syllable in oral = ore.
There! Proof positive. They *do speak English in Kentucky!
:-)
They don't sound the same to me, either - only, for me, "oral" rhymes with "coral" rather than with "choral"
"coral" rather than with "choral"
hey! let go of my leg!
now, if you'd said "corral" rather than "chorale"...
They *do speak English in Kentucky! HEY! Now just a dadburned, cotton-pickin' minnit, here--y'all cut that out now, y'hear?
"oral" = "aural" ?
I pronounce them indistinguishably. On the other hand my parents, veterans of young adulthood in New York City during the Depression when civil service jobs were a thing to be prized, used to tell about how the Board of Education used the candidates' pronounciation of those two words as a disqualifying criterion. (So many applicants, so few openings...) I think they had to be different, but I couldn't say which was what.
Here's how I pronounce the two and I hope I don't lose my job:
aural = AWR - uhl (or: awr = are)
oral = OHR - uhl (or: ohr = or/ore)
now, if you'd said "corral" rather than "chorale"... -- and I thought it was you USns that were all for using the fewest possible letters!
"Of coral are his bones ..."
"Of wooden stakes are his corral"
ja, I might give aural a bit of the "aw" sound, but I usually just point at my ears...
the fewest possible letters!
But no fewer.
"oral" rhymes with "coral" rather than with "choral"
Whaaaaa???? "Choral" and "coral" are homophones in my universe. What about other au- words? "Aurora" has the same sound as "aural" and "oral", for me, anyway.
I'm with Rhuby.
"oral" rhymes with "coral" rather than with "choral" and "choral" is like "core", as in apple, and rhymes with "aural". But that's just how *we say them. Whatever works for *you, that's fine.
"oral" … "coral" … "choral" … "choral" … "core" … "aural"
Uh-huh (or should that be ur-hur?)
ur-hur
Wasn't he Ben's original, rather primitive, ancestor?