Hmmm, it's used differently in the South, where I've always heard it as a more polite euphemism for being flatulent. Though I imagine it would likewise be exacerbated by overly tight corseting.
This is how I've always understood it, too.
Giles: I jump out of the circle, jump back in, and, and, shake my gourd. Buffy: Hey, I think I know this ritual. The ancient shamans were next called upon to do the Hokey-Pokey and to turn themselves around.
'Dirty Girls'
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Topic!Cindy - Aug 12, 2004 11:54:49 am PDT #5594 of 10002
What is even happening?
billytea - Aug 12, 2004 11:55:38 am PDT #5595 of 10002
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.
This is how I've always understood it, too.
Reading Jane Austen must be a very different experience in the South.
Ginger - Aug 12, 2004 12:09:10 pm PDT #5596 of 10002
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Hmmm, it's used differently in the South, where I've always heard it as a more polite euphemism for being flatulent.
That's interesting. I've lived in the South for 35 years and my mother's family has lived in Tennessee for several generations, and I've never heard it used as a euphemism for flatulence. It's always been used for someone who "took to her bed," usually for no apparent reason.
Connie Neil - Aug 12, 2004 12:16:44 pm PDT #5597 of 10002
brillig
It's always been used for someone who "took to her bed," usually for no apparent reason
Ah. The vapours = "I need a nap." Works for me, and you can give the impression of being delicate and frail at the same time. I've always pictured "the vapours" as synonymous with swooning and fanning oneself.
Daisy Jane - Aug 12, 2004 12:19:32 pm PDT #5598 of 10002
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
Ginger's understanding is mine. Not in the nap sense though- more in the "must lie in bed with some undefined malady" It's the less severe form of "Pale coughing disease" so many heroines seem to come down with.
brenda m - Aug 12, 2004 12:22:03 pm PDT #5599 of 10002
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there
Connie's vapours are mine.
Ginger - Aug 12, 2004 12:23:10 pm PDT #5600 of 10002
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I'm not sure if "took to her bed" is a Southernism or left over from my excessive reading of trashy 19th century novels. As Heather says, it means someone who, without a definable ailment, just stays in bed.
Connie Neil - Aug 12, 2004 12:49:55 pm PDT #5601 of 10002
brillig
Connie's vapours are mine.
Bring Your Own Fan.
JoeCrow - Aug 12, 2004 3:51:02 pm PDT #5602 of 10002
"what's left when you take biology and sociology out of the picture?" "An autistic hermaphodite." -Allyson
This was before I hit the page that was like Melrose Place with the Cthulhu Cyle Deities cast in the principal roles, mind you. Bleargh.
Dude, that's nothing. In the end, the humans win. No, really. They defeat Yog-Sothoth and everything. WTF is THAT about?
§ ita § - Aug 15, 2004 11:12:49 am PDT #5603 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
(from amchau) Rowling divulges tidbits from HP6.