Weekend Economists Going to the Dickens December 16-18, 2011 [View all]

[Demeter]

What the dickens did you say?

dick·ens n. Informal

1. A severe reprimand or expression of anger: gave me the dickens for being late.

2. Used as an intensive: What in the dickens is that? (Shakespeare used it in 'the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1600: I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.)

3. Like the dickens (a lot)

4. a word used in exclamations of confusion; "the dickens you say"


This phrase has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. Dickens is a euphemism, specifically a minced-oath, for the word devil, possibly via devilkins. “What the dickens” has been around for over five centuries. In the old days, people refrained from using words like “hell”, “devil”, and “Satan” in their speech. They felt that if these words were uttered, their souls would immediately go to hell; as a result, they coined euphemisms for these words. “Dickens” was one of the words they came up with.

The expression “what the dickens” has the same meaning as “what the hell?” and “what the devil?” So when someone says, “Who the dickens are you?” what he is saying is, “Who the hell/devil are you?” According to some scholars “dickens” refers to Satan. One of the terms used to refer to the devil is “Old Nick”. Since “dick” rhymes with “Nick”, the word began to be used to refer to the devil. There are a number of expressions in the English language with the word “dickens”. Some are, “go to the dickens”, “raise the dickens”, “play the dickens” and “the dickens take you”.

BUT, being the perverse punster I am, we are going to THE Dickens himself, Charles Dickens, who left the Victorian era shaken AND stirred by his voluminous novels and one short, sweet story, the novella A Christmas Carol,



first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.

The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain when it was experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions, and at the time when new customs such as the Christmas tree and greeting cards were being introduced. Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.

The tale has been viewed as an indictment of nineteenth century industrial capitalism and was adapted several times to the stage, and has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and sombreness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print, and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol

If, like me and every woman of my acquaintance, you are feeling no Christmas spirit, if the carols are getting on your nerves and like Handel's Messiah's sheep, you feel you have gone astray this year, let not one, not two, but 3 Christmas spirits bring you into the light of the season....

I'd like to point out that, immediately following the appearance of this tale, we have the publication of Engel's The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, and a string of revolts and revolutions around the globe in the tumultuous years of 1848 and beyond, up to the American Civil War, that ultimate labor revolt.