[Sca-cooks] Mollycoddle was OOP: What are they teaching are kids?

Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com
Thu Jan 7 13:31:16 PST 2010


You rang?

Checked OED-

  For the noun mollycoddle it all leads in a number of ways:

  mollycoddle   v.; pampering; excessive care or attention.

1881 ‘RITA’ My Lady Coquette xv, Fresh air is a thousand times  
better for her than molly-coddling and medicines.

  the verb Mollycoddle

trans. To coddle, pamper; to treat in an over-indulgent or excessively  
protective way. Occas. intr.
   In quot. 1867 with away: (prob.) to spend (time) being indulged or  
pampered.

1863 [implied in MOLLYCODDLER n.]. 1865 J. SLEIGH Derbyshire Gloss. in  
Reliquary VI. 95 Coddle, to spoil with over care and nursing; hence  
Molly Coddle. 1867 R. BROUGHTON Cometh up as Flower II. xvi. 246, I  
cannot stop molly-coddling away half a morning at a foolish little  
woman's apron strings. 1870 DICKENS Edwin Drood ii. 6 Don't moddley- 
coddley, there's a good fellow. I like anything better than being  
moddley-coddleyed.

----------

  MOLLYCODDLER the noun A person who mollycoddles another.

1863 A. J. MUNBY Diary 31 Aug. (1972) 172 It keeps up a wholesome  
protest against the Mollycoddlers, to see a whole countryful of stout  
lasses devoted to field-labour only. 1933 J. CARY Amer. Visitor 213  
Minnie was a molly coddler, in Bewsher's phrase, and liked to take  
temperatures.

---------------

mollycoddle, n. and adj.    A. n.    A person, usually male, who is  
mollycoddled; an effeminate man or boy; a milksop. Also (Eng.  
regional): = MOLLYCOT n.

1849 THACKERAY Pendennis (1850) I. xxxii. 310 You have been bred up as  
a molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. 1860 ‘G. ELIOT’ Mill  
on Floss I. I. ix. 167 He didn't want to be a gentleman farmer,  
because he shouldn't like to be such a thin-legged silly fellow as his  
uncle Pulleta molly-coddle, in fact.

B. adj.    Ineffectual; spiritless; effeminate. Obs.

1894 W. H. WILKINS & H. VIVIAN Green Bay Tree I. 24 This desperately  
molly-coddle age.

  ------------------

mollycoddled, adj.

at last a food quotation

   Pampered; overprotected, over-indulged.   Quot. a1959 plays on this  
sense and the sense of CODDLE v.1

a1959 J. STAFFORD Treasures of Use & Beauty in D. Roberts Jean  
Stafford (1988) 313 Now you take your so-called invalid food, your  
custards and your mollycoddled eggs and your mashed potatoes and how  
are they going to keep their strength up with those kind of mush?

--------------------

mollycoddling, n. The action of MOLLYCODDLE v.; pampering; excessive  
care or attention.

1881 ‘RITA’ My Lady Coquette xv, Fresh air is a thousand times  
better for her than molly-coddling and medicines.

-----------

mollycoddling, adj.   That mollycoddles; indulgent; excessively  
careful or cautious.

1881 Punch 24 Dec. 294/1 A piece of ‘Molly-Coddling Legislation’.

-------------------

leading back to mollycot, n.

A man who performs work typically associated with women, or who  
concerns himself with domestic affairs. Cf. MOLLY n.1 2, MOLLYCODDLE n.

1826 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 20 846/2 What in vulgar English is called  
a Molly-cot. 1837 M. R. MITFORD Country Stories 186 He's a worse  
mollycot than a woman.

-----------  A Molly can be Moll! 1. A girl, a woman, esp. a lower- 
class one; (occas.) a prostitute. Cf. MOLL n.2 Now chiefly Irish  
English.

1706 in H. Playford Wit & Mirth (new ed.) IV. 67 Town follyes and  
Cullies, And Molleys and Dolleys, For ever adieu.

   2. slang. An effeminate man or boy; a male homosexual. Also: a man  
who performs work typically associated with women, or who concerns  
himself with women's affairs. Cf. MISS MOLLY n., MOLLYCOT n.
1708 E. WARD London Terræfilius V. 10 He behaves himself more like a  
Catamite, an Eunuch, or one of those Ridiculous Imitators of the  
Female Sex, call'd Mollies, than like a Son of Adam.

I'll be back with coddle.

Johnnae

( As the snow continues to fall)

  On Jan 7, 2010, at 3:58 PM, edoard at medievalcookery.com wrote:

>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>  
>> [...]
>> Which leads me to wonder, apropos of not much, whether  
>> "mollycoddling" is in fact a reference to oeufs mollet...
>
> Most of the dictionary definitions I've seen for "mollycoddle" say  
> that
> "molly" comes from the person's name, however I suspect that these
> etymologies are incorrect, and that the "molly" part comes from the
> French "molle" (= soft).  I'll check the doorstop when I get home - it
> tends to have more detailed histories and has dates listed for first
> use.
> Perhaps Johnnae can check the OED and see what it says?
> - Doc


More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list