[Vwoolf] boss of the back

[Stuart N. Clarke]

I read it as meaning that bits of gingerbread have stuck to the child’s face, thus embossing it.

“The bitter eighteenth-century rain rushed down the kennel.” (JR)
I found kennels in Boz:
In the ‘Seven Dials’ chapter in ‘Sketches by Boz’ (1839), Charles Dickens refers to ‘half-naked children that wallow in the kennels’.

Stuart

From: Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf 
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2020 2:52 PM
To: Clark, Hilary ; vwoolf 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] boss of the back

This triggered a memory. In Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz, the verb to emboss is used three times. In two cases that which is embossed clearly stands out rather than sinks in. But then there is this example.



"He [a small child] had a light blue cap with a gold band and tassel on his head, and a damp piece of gingerbread in his hand, with which he had slightly embossed his countenance." ("The Steam Excursion")



Of course, if the child has pressed his face into the cake, there may well be a convex image on one side of it and a concave one on the other side. However for me the primary image is that of a depression, rather than a raised impression. Whatever the case, it's a wonderful piece of Dickensian observation I think!




Jeremy H





On 22.04.2020 18:38, Clark, Hilary wrote:

  A hollow, but also a hump: French "bosse" means hump. 


  In English, "to emboss" is "to cause to bulge or swell out, make convex or protuberant" (OED online).




  Hilary Clark




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