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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div>1) Ancestry.co.uk says (<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=watkiss__;!!KGKeukY!lbtpV93702SyCQ5eSwrvHgRKdmcefc6_jjGTjt_KF4AFT4Zap86cHcz_fZQ8J4JL5uZBDSuL9YT6cZ4$" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="">https://www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=watkiss</a>):</div><blockquote><blockquote><div><span>Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands of England. </span>In 1891 there were 156 Watkiss families living in Staffordshire. This was about 41% of all the recorded Watkiss's in the UK. Staffordshire had the highest population of Watkiss families in 1891.</div></blockquote></blockquote></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Some Staffs residents have a similar accent to those in Birmingham.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">2) Inserting a middle initial may have given certain individuals a feeling of upward mobility. My paternal grandfather had no middle name but started inserting 'Bingley' between his first name and surname in the 1920, 1930s or 1940s. He was very ambitious for his children and grandchildren, and berated one of his sons-in-law for not earning enough to send his children to a fee-paying school. (Although neither had he.) <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Like Stuart, I use a middle initial, although I wouldn't bother if I hadn't met so many people with my name. Once, on a team of softball players, two of us were called Sarah Hall. <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">'Are you the Booker-nominated novelist', I am occasionally asked. 'I wish', I answer wistfully.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Sarah M. Hall</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">(<span>Let her/him who is without blame cast the first stone)</span><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div></div><div><br></div>
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On Monday, 23 November 2020, 15:32:57 GMT, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf@lists.osu.edu> wrote:
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<div>As a welder, it would not have been particularly odd for my father to have
been carrying a “roll of lead piping”* in Bond Street on a Wednesday in June
1923: A. N. Clarke, Arthur Clarke, Nobby Clarke, or, probably in the 1931
census, Clarke, Arthur N. (“How many rooms are in your dwelling?” “Bloody
cheek! It’s none of their business. I’m not answering that.”).
I have always been attached to my middle initial, but that’s a bit unusual in
the UK (no Ulysses S. Grants for us!).</div>
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<div>As for the name(s), the CUP MD used our old chums the “Oxford Names
Companion” (or a variation thereof; there is a new edn with bells and whistles,
but I haven’t really looked into it, virtually): Watkiss comes from Watt, a
short form of Walter. J. Arthur Prufrock is suggested. I may be
wrong, but Edgar sounds a little middle class for the late 19th C, but you could
always have called him Ed.</div>
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<div>CUP doesn’t annotate the accent crux, or the date crux, or the
who’s-in-the-car crux, or the roll-of-lead-piping crux.</div>
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<div>I have written a little article discussing the possibility of the Queen in
the car, which may get into the May 2021 “Virginia Woolf Bulletin”. Of
course, we will never really know who’s in the car.</div>
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<div>*As an ignorant welder’s son, I ask: What *is* a roll of lead piping?
I know what lead piping is = a pipe made of lead (my father might carry it,
ready to weld onto another pipe, etc.). I also know what a roll of lead
is, e.g. for roofing flashing (my father wouldn’t carry it, I think, as welding
isn’t involved – on the other hand, you might well use a blowtorch to seal, in
which case . . . ).</div>
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<div>Stuart </div>
<div>(Day 251)</div>
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<div class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329yqt7953491923" id="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329yqtfd46280"><div><b>From:</b> <a shape="rect" title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">Jeremy
Hawthorn via Vwoolf</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Monday, November 23, 2020 9:52 AM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a shape="rect" title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a> </div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] "Mrs. Dalloway" crux</div></div></div></div><div class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329yqt7953491923" id="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329yqtfd74776">
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<p>My Irish speaking colleague (from Belfast but studied in Dublin) writes:
"Well, the name doesn't sound Irish, even remotely. And if it's said humorously,
could it not be a mock-Irish accent? But if I say it out loud, it definitely
sounds North Dublin."<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Watkiss is being humorous, so presumably may well
be imitating someone or something. I can’t see why he would imitate a Black
Country dialect, but he might well imitate posh, or a stage Irish (mock-Irish as
my colleague has it) that was conventionally used for humorous
effect.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Another friend says that "it’s a bit like Laurence Fox imitating
a working-class accent." I think he means that VW is stepping outside her
linguistic / social comfort zone here.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">What about Watkiss's middle
initial? Is this (a) Woolf or her narrator mocking his pretentious way of
referring to himself, or (b) his wish to be known by a name that suggests
importance, or (c) his own jokey way of referring to himself as if he were
important (he knows he is not)?<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Incidentally, are we to presume (given
the end of the novel) that it IS the Prime Minister's car?<br clear="none"></p>
<div class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329moz-cite-prefix">Jeremy H<br clear="none"></div>
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<div class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329moz-cite-prefix"> </div>
<div class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329moz-cite-prefix">On 22.11.2020 17:53, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
wrote:<br clear="none"></div>
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<div><span style="WHITE-SPACE:normal;WORD-SPACING:0px;TEXT-TRANSFORM:none;FLOAT:none;TEXT-ALIGN:justify;ORPHANS:2;WIDOWS:2;DISPLAY:inline !important;LETTER-SPACING:normal;TEXT-INDENT:0px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;"><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Times New Roman"><font style="FONT-SIZE:13.6pt;BACKGROUND-COLOR:#faebd7;">Edgar J. Watkiss, with
his roll of lead piping round his arm, said audibly, humorously of course:
"The Proime Minister's kyar."</font></font></span></div>
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<div>Leaving aside the ramifications and peculiarities of his name, what is
his accent? This has subconsciously bothered me for years. It has
been suggested that it is Irish. “Proime” sounds Southern Irish;
alternatively, very Birmingham to me. Is “kyar” Irish? It
doesn’t sound like any accent I can readily think of. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Woolf wrote in “Memories of a Working Women’s Guild” (1930):</div>
<div> </div>
<div>“to deride ladies and to imitate, as some of the speakers did,</div>
<div>their mincing speech and little knowledge of what it pleases them
to</div>
<div>call ‘reality’ is not merely bad manners, but it gives away the
whole</div>
<div>purpose of the Congress, for if it is better to be a working woman</div>
<div>by all means let them remain so and not claim their right to
undergo</div>
<div>the contamination of wealth and comfort.” (E5 182)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If he says it “humorously”, then is he perhaps parodying upper-class
speech?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Stuart</div>
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<fieldset class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset> <pre class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
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</pre></blockquote><pre class="ydpdbc7c73byiv1828793329moz-signature">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway</pre>
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