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| Midnight Modern Conversation ca 1732 |
Though Easter Tuesday comes rather later this year, I’m working with Hone’s date, since it seems equally applicable to all feast-days. I think, too, this offers a good example of phrases that sound modern, but actually have been around for a long time. Unlike so many other expressions, “hair of the dog” is as familiar to us as it was to Hone’s readers in 1826. The OED traces it to the 16th century.
As to the “feats of potation”—given the level of drinking in Hone's time, one can only imagine what his ancestors might have consumed, to impress him so deeply.
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| Easter Tuesday |
Image:
Unknown artist after William Hogarth, A Midnight Modern Conversation ca. 1732courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Accession No. B1981.25.351
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One of us -- 
3 comments:
Hair of the dog always confused me! I thought it was code for some special brew, but here he says hair of the SaME dog, which makes perfect sense! Nothing to do unity dogs, hair, etc... I've since heard hair of the dog that bit ya. So I guess the phrase really has been around a long time, and has picked up a whole lot of different ways to say you have permission to drink the morning after.
Thanks -- so entertaining. Love the history posts!!
Nancy N
Oh damn auto correct. Unity has nothing to do with my sentence. Meant to say nothing to do WITH...
@Nancy--have to say, though, I really rather like "unity dogs".
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