Why do women carry purses and men do not? We all have keys, identification cards and cash to carry around. Otzi the Iceman had the oldest known purse, dating back 5,000 years.
Men once carried coin purses. In early modern Europe, when women's fashions moved in the direction of using small ornamental purses, which evolved into handbags, men's fashions were moving in another direction. Men's trousers replaced men's breeches during the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, and pockets were incorporated in the loose, heavy material. This enabled men to continue carrying coins, and then paper currency, in small leather wallets. Men's pockets were plentiful in the 19th century and 20th century trousers and coats, to carry possessions, such as pipes, matches, and knives.
The modern woman's purse, clutch, pouch, or handbag came about in England during the Industrial Revolution, in part due to the increase in travel by railway. Industrialist Samuel Parkinson is considered the originator of modern-day women's purses. Those original travel and handbags that he owned are in the Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam.
The verb "to handbag" was inspired in the 1980s by UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher having “weaponized” the handbag in the opinion of British biographer and historian David Cannadine. As “her most visible symbol of her power to command” the bag became an emphatic prop that she produced at meetings to show she meant business. She would invariably bring out of the bag a crucial document from which she would quote, her speech notes often being cut to size to fit inside. Because Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore wrote in his authorised biography of 2013, “her handbag became the sceptre of her rule”.
I wondered what age a girl would want a purse. How about the best toddler pursesheadline. Do you think a 1 year old can carry a purse? Definitely. There are lots of pictures to prove it.
I like this joke:
Today my wife went outside with her purse open. She'd heard there would be some change in the weather.
What do you notice about the name "Smiths Falls". There is no possessive indication in the name. It originally was named Smyth's Falls in 1784. It transitioned on to Smith's Falls, and then started being written as Smiths Falls without the apostrophe. Not until 1968 did the name become official with an Act of the Ontario Legislature to officially remove the apostrophe.
There is no indication of St. Catharines having ever been a possessive phrase, even though it is thought to be named after Catharine Askin Robertson Hamilton, wife of Robert Hamilton. It seems an indication of how many variations can take place.
What about 'Farmers Market'. It has various spellings with Wikipedia's entry being named Farmers' Markets and other entries Farmers Market.
"Some farmers markets get it right, and some don't. No apostrophe is necessary in "farmers" because the phrase is what the AP Stylebook calls a descriptive phrase, not a possessive phrase. A descriptive phrase means the word "farmers" is being treated as an adjective, not as a noun."
We can see this quote comes from an Editor's Desk. Or is it the Editors' Desk? Did all the editors agree on this one.
Along the way, I found these amazing examples of irregular plurals:
If all of the women have fancy cars, you should write "the women's fancy cars."
Should you find that every deer in the woods behind your house has a blue tail, you will write "the deer's tails."
If several tornadoes strike in three different states, and each tornado destroys only a laundromat, you would write about the "phenomena's strange affinity for laundromats."
The last scenario seems to be the summary of a movie or novel. The very entertaining entry concludes with the Aberrant Apostrophe:
"Irregular plurals that still end in "s" such as knives, wives, crises and potatoes should follow Rule 1-simply place the apostrophe after the letter s. The knives' edges, wives' stories, crises' repercussions and potatoes' colors are therefore grammatically preserved."
It is train day today - this is one of Gerry's railroad scenes showing the transition from day through night and into sunrise.
