Ghostly fingers moving my limbs...

[leahbobet]

November 8, 2008 Progress Notes:

The Enchanted Generation

Words today: 250.
Words total: 250.

250 / 100,000 (0.2%)

Reason for stopping: I need to do some serious reading before I go any farther.
Munchies: Spicy tuna roll and water.

Darling du Jour: It was whiter inside, where the roses-and-gold enamel never got. We had worn it yellowed with decades of tea and lips lightly touching, and never noticed a thing.

Mean Things: Breaking the last good teacup.
Research Roundup: Whether it was 'dinner' or 'supper' in 1919 England; history of Wedgwood china; musk roses; popular girls' names for 1900; some inquiry with katallen about Scottish-English relations in the early 1900s; history of the University of Edinburgh.
Books in progress: Richard Adams, Watership Down.
The glamour: Groceries, dishes. I was not half as virtupus as I should have been today. I remain a bit quiet and fried.

---

This is the first time words on this project have been substantial enough to do a post. It throws me a bone here and there every few weeks -- a plot point, a central symbol (tonight), something -- and I'll take some notes and add a sentence or two. This time it was a couple paragraphs. So the log has been created. We start somewhere.

I know there are some historians and librarians along here, so I'm throwing it out for the crowd: can anyone recommend some good social histories of Britain in the 1918-1939 era, or any particular scholars to avoid (for example, Robert Graves Y/N?)? I'm looking for daily life over meta-political analysis. If anyone has suggestions, I will be much obliged and probably buy you a beer.

Comments

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

Whether it was 'dinner' or 'supper' in 1919 England

Well?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Dinner is a formal meal. Supper is just family.

That, of course, is also fully dependent on which region you're in and what dialect you're speaking. :p

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

Of course. Pesky etiquette divas.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Well, not really -- it's just here that the words actually mean the same thing. I get the feeling they were fundamentally different.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

For some dialects and social classes the main meal at the end of the day will be "tea".

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I think I'm pretty clear of that one; they're sort of country house people gone to academia. *g*

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Mass Observation (http://www.massobs.org.uk/index.htm) started in 1937 - I don't know if that's too late to be useful?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

It is a bit late, but still useful. Thank you!

[strayfish.livejournal.com]

Can I ask how Watership Down is going? I've always wanted to read that one.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I'm only about...thirteen chapters in? But so far, so good. The made-up words throw me a little, especially for other animals, because I keep trying to figure out what animal they're actually talking about. But I'm liking it.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Not having read him, I can't speak from experience, but I hear Robert Graves is pretty good. 1918-1939 Britain is rather emphatically not my period, though. (Ireland, I could probably dig up something.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) I may well pick him up unless someone speaks out against.