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| When did people start ‘purring’? | When did people start ‘purring’? |
| (about 17 hours later) | |
| According to David Cameron, the Queen “purred down the line” when she heard the result of the Scottish referendum. It’s nice to think of the Queen as a giant fluffy white-haired cat, and no doubt it is a mite more respectful to talk of Her Majesty purring than it would be to claim that she barked or oinked in approval. But how did we ever come to speak of human beings “purring” in the first place? | According to David Cameron, the Queen “purred down the line” when she heard the result of the Scottish referendum. It’s nice to think of the Queen as a giant fluffy white-haired cat, and no doubt it is a mite more respectful to talk of Her Majesty purring than it would be to claim that she barked or oinked in approval. But how did we ever come to speak of human beings “purring” in the first place? |
| Purr is an “imitative” or onomatopoeic word (Germans used to say “purren”) to denote the continuous low vibratory sound made by happy cats. Shakespeare uses “purr” twice, both times about actual felines: once in King Lear, when Edgar concludes a ditty about a sheep by exclaiming, mysteriously: “Purr! The cat is grey”; and once in All’s Well That Ends Well (the “purr [...] of Fortune’s cat”). | |
| Human beings did not purr until later in the 17th century. The poet John Dryden introduces an important sense in 1671: “We love to get our Mistresses, and purr over ’em.” The men purring over the women are smug, like cats who have got the cream. Smug, too, is the librarian in Joyce’s Ulysses: “The quaker librarian purred: – And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of Wilhelm Meister?” Purring here is an expression of satisfied ownership, perhaps like a monarch who has still got a country. | Human beings did not purr until later in the 17th century. The poet John Dryden introduces an important sense in 1671: “We love to get our Mistresses, and purr over ’em.” The men purring over the women are smug, like cats who have got the cream. Smug, too, is the librarian in Joyce’s Ulysses: “The quaker librarian purred: – And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of Wilhelm Meister?” Purring here is an expression of satisfied ownership, perhaps like a monarch who has still got a country. |
| One also purrs when one’s ego is stroked, which Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1858 said was particularly true of writers: “I never saw an author … that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat … on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.” But Dryden’s lovers may also be purring in the sense the OED calls speaking in a “seductive manner”. If the thought comes to you that David Cameron was accusing the Queen of trying to sexy-talk him over the telephone, you must immediately banish it for the sake of the still-intact Union. | One also purrs when one’s ego is stroked, which Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1858 said was particularly true of writers: “I never saw an author … that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat … on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.” But Dryden’s lovers may also be purring in the sense the OED calls speaking in a “seductive manner”. If the thought comes to you that David Cameron was accusing the Queen of trying to sexy-talk him over the telephone, you must immediately banish it for the sake of the still-intact Union. |
| Historically, we are currently enjoying a purr maximum, perhaps because we are all so pleased with the shiny gewgaws thrust upon us by consumer culture. If you graph “purr” and its cognates on Google’s Ngrams (which searches printed books), you find a preponderance of purring around 1920, falling to a low trough in the 1970s, either because the world’s feline population suffered some decade-long catastrophe, or because not many people purred for prog rock and oil crises. | Historically, we are currently enjoying a purr maximum, perhaps because we are all so pleased with the shiny gewgaws thrust upon us by consumer culture. If you graph “purr” and its cognates on Google’s Ngrams (which searches printed books), you find a preponderance of purring around 1920, falling to a low trough in the 1970s, either because the world’s feline population suffered some decade-long catastrophe, or because not many people purred for prog rock and oil crises. |
| Happily purring has risen again to 1920s levels. Though it is hard to be sure that this reflects a general contentment, since genre-fiction villains and the engines of expensive cars notoriously purr as well. | Happily purring has risen again to 1920s levels. Though it is hard to be sure that this reflects a general contentment, since genre-fiction villains and the engines of expensive cars notoriously purr as well. |
| What most talk of people purring has in common, however, is an idea of self-satisfaction, like Dryden’s lotharios and Joyce’s librarian. To say the Queen “purred” is, then, to imply smugness in her approval. And so David Cameron’s smug imputation of that smugness is indeed a ghastly case of rhetorical lèse-majesté after all. | What most talk of people purring has in common, however, is an idea of self-satisfaction, like Dryden’s lotharios and Joyce’s librarian. To say the Queen “purred” is, then, to imply smugness in her approval. And so David Cameron’s smug imputation of that smugness is indeed a ghastly case of rhetorical lèse-majesté after all. |
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