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#117301 12/09/03 04:54 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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I've just been reading a biography of her. Strange lady, but when she put her mind to it, she could write!


#117302 12/10/03 02:23 PM
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the upper class in society This is what tony refers to, right? How did it come to be?


#117303 12/10/03 02:39 PM
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R
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Directly from the French, jackie. So far as I can remember (without LgIU) "ton" is french for "tone" - as in the "Bon Ton" mentioned above.


#117304 12/10/03 10:49 PM
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Yup, the fashion-conscious male section of the English upper classes was called "the Ton" during the Regency period. People were said to have "good ton" if they were regarded as fashionable and had lots of money and good manners. The two main "styles" were the corinthian - sporty guys with "sober" but very expensive dress - and the dandies, who wore extreme clothes and looked like coxcombs. The Prince Regent tended towards dandyism. Overall, the upper class was called the Upper 10000 (or something like that).


#117305 12/11/03 02:38 AM
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the upper class was called the Upper 10000 (or something like that).

There you go again, with the orders of magnitude.


#117306 12/12/03 12:18 PM
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No no, Faldage, that was tsuwm.


#117307 12/12/03 04:32 PM
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Orders of magnitude? No, but I'll have it with an order of fries. French here, freedom(!!!!!!) there.


#117308 12/13/03 04:19 PM
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Thank you shanks! Yup! It's Heyer for me! She wrote one about a gal brought up by her father in Africa and very much a liberated woman....wish I could remember the name it was a nifty story.
I heard that some Brit historians had tried to find errors in Heyer stories and came to the conclusion she either had done amazing research, had a stock of newspapers from the Regency era or was very old!
While we are at it -- what were the "macaroni?" as in
"Put a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni? fromYankee Doodle Dandy.


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Pooh-Bah
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Wow, here's a link that explains it very well:

http://www.jolique.com/social_status/yankee_doodle.htm

As for Georgette Heyer, she was famous for her Regency romances, but they were really just "pot-boilers" for her, bringing in the dosh while she researched her historical novels. The best of these are:

The Conqueror, which gives a rather different perspective on William I,
An Infamous Army, a romantic novel set in the run up to Waterloo (but don't let that put you off; it's regarded as one of the best accounts of both the politics leading up to Waterloo and of the battle itself. The bibliography is wa-hey impressive!);
The Spanish Bride, based on a true event during the Peninsular Wars (and which first kindled my interest in them)
Royal Escape, a fictionalised account of Charles II's escape from the roundheads; and her tour-de-force
My Lord John, which she was still writing when she died. Her son finished the book (very well, I might add) and it was published posthumously. MLJ is the story of Henry V's childhood.

I've always been partial to her Regency novels meownself because they are usually beautifully written and accurately reflect the life and times of the upper and upper middle class at that period.

If you want to dip into Heyer but aren't sure about it, buy Pistols for Two, which is a collection of her short Regency stories!


#117310 12/14/03 04:14 PM
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I get the meaning from your context, CK, I think, but how did this term come into use? I think there's a similar expression used here, but can't recall what it is.


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