Goody Two Shoes

Not about Jade. (Well, only peripherally.)

The inevitable comments are starting to come out of the British newspapers regarding the Big Brother bullying-and-racism flap. A few of the articles are making puns on Jade's last name, including a very specific one: Is it too late to be Goody Two-Shoes?, etc. And something about that brought my head up. What's with these references to the name of the main character in a children's book two hundred fifty years old... a book in which even the identity of the writer is in doubt, and which (I would be willing to lay down at least a ten-Euro note) almost nobody who uses the phrase has ever read?

It seems lots and lots of English-speaking people know the phrase, even after the source has been almost completely forgotten in (at least) popular culture. What kind of book remains so long alive in the language -- if only in title -- while no one knows much of anything about it? Why this strange etiolated fame? ...I'm as familiar with the phrase as anyone else, but had never given a moment's thought to the source. After seeing these news stories, though, suddenly I got curious and went hunting.

( Read more... )