[Fictionary] stepmother's blessing revealed

Sat Mar 29 09:15:48 EDT 2014

HI, some comments:  Queen Anne's Lace as a flower is very useful, and not just prettily delicate.  Just let the seeds dry on the stalks outside, and grind them up slightly in a mortar and pestle, add boiling water, and steep for 10 minutes.  This is a cheap digestive aid, works similarly to anisette, has a mild flavor, can be flavored with milk, honey, and/or lemon, and is related to both anisette and carrot--even the seeds look similar.  I'm not sure of the so-called meaning of this flower, but many flowers used to have messages conveyed in the sending, when it was hard to get past strict parents, etc. You can probably google the theme.  I have seen books about this.  There is some sort of growth on or inside the back (dorsal) side of the hand--ganglion?--that used to be removed/dissolved by slapping the growth hard with a Bible, often by a preacher. Can't remember the name of the affliction, but I do know someone who grew up in Texas and saw this done to a young boy.  I acquired a stepmother at age 27, and was already married with kids, when my father remarried an old family friend after my mother had died.  She tried to be strict with my younger sibs, all of whom were mostly out of the house, fortunately, but it was hard on us all because in her insecurity, not only did she not like us, but she really didn't like her own kids either.  Many years later, I realized why she was such a neat freak, when I met her mother--a bossy uber-neat freak, and could not resist telling her off when she started to boss me around in my father's house.  Later that night my stepmother thanked me for having the guts to confront the old lady witch.   That's when I began to see another nicer side of Dottie, so perhaps that was my--and her-- stepmother's blessing.  LInda
---------- Original Message ----------
From: Jean-Joseph Cote <jjcote at alum.mit.edu>
To: fictionary group <fictionary at swarpa.net>
Subject: [Fictionary] stepmother's blessing revealed
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:35:03 -0400

Well, this turned out to be somewhat less interesting than I had hoped it would be.  The votes really piled up on a small number of definitions, which included a couple that were intriguingly similar to the real one (which got the most actual votes).  And one of these, Andrew's callus, is the winner.

Part of what happened here seems to be that people were somehow intimidated to varying degrees by the "stepmother" bit, in some cases either falling into or deliberately avoiding some kind of negative stereotype to such a degree that you'd almost think that "wicked stepmother" is a "stormy petrel".  I wasn't expecting a phrase with "blessing" in it to bring such implied irony.  In fact, I was almost surprised that nobody went for what I considered submitting myself as a joke definition (although Matthew was in the same vague neighborhood):
stepmother's blessing - n. - Absence of stretch marks.

Your turn, Andrew!

Jean-Joseph
______________________________

stepmother's blessing - n. - A young, good cook.
>From Hutch.  No points.
Elliott: I can see that this would be any kind of mother's blessing, but why particularly a stepmother's? 

stepmother's blessing - n. - A meal of wild mushrooms.
>From David.  Correct guess 2 = 2 points.
Elliott: I sense a dark meaning behind the fair veil. 

stepmother's blessing - n. - A child significantly younger than all of its siblings. 
>From Jim.  Matthew 2, Nicolas 1, Andrew 1, correct guess 2 = 6 points.
Elliott: So that when the mother dies, that child will be able to help the stepmother raise subsequent children? 

stepmother's blessing - n. - A callus or corn on the dorsal side of fingers or toes.
>From Andrew.  Ranjit 2, David 1, Matthew 1, Pierre 1, correct guess 2 = 7 points.
Elliott: Why stepmother's, though, and not maternal uncle's? 

stepmother's blessing - n. - 1) A hangnail, 2) Queen Anne's lace (Anthriscus sylvestris).
>From web sources (i.e. the supposedly real definition).  David 2, Nicolas 2, Andrew 2, Jim 2 = 8 points.
Pierre: The only Queen Anne's lace I know of is in the genus Daucus.  [later...] I looked up Anthriscus and one of its names is mother-die. It is in Apiaceae, along with the carrot. It's also called keck, which is probably a variant of 
kex (2013-07).
Elliott: Admirable disjunctive category, but what's it got to do with stepmothers?
Editor's commentary: The hangnail definition may be a particularly Lancashire colloquialism, though it has spread from there.  I wasn't able to find any decent guesses as to the etymology.  I have to wonder if it might be a cognate of the French "blesser", meaning "to wound".  If so, I'm undecided as to whether this would be a wound that a stepmother would be likely to inflict, or a wound that a stepmother would be likely to suffer from, or why.  As for the plant, it is also called mother-die, reportedly from the belief that if you bring it into the house, it will attract snakes, which will then fatally bite your mother (creating an opening for a stepmother).  There is some speculation that this may be something told to children in order to discourage them from picking this plant, since it causes a mess when the numerous tiny petals fall off.  Note, however, that this all happens prior to the arrival of the stepmother, and no malice is attributed to her, she just inherits a wonderful family.

stepmother's blessing - n. - Colloquial phrase meaning "all of the benefits without the difficult parts".
>From Matthew.  No points.
Elliott: Moving into an already-populated household where you replace a dead person sounds pretty difficult to me.... 

Stepmother's Blessing - n. - A patented grafted strawberry combining disease-tolerant rootstock with long-bearing crown.  No points.
>From Ranjit.
Elliott: Could be a graft of Stepford Wife onto Mother's Blessing, I suppose. 

stepmother's blessing - n. - (Perl)  The act of blessing an object into a class other than that of its original constructor. 
>From Elliott.  Ranjit 1, Jim 1, Pierre 2 = 4 points.
Matthew: honorable mention, but I think someone in this group would have heard of it if it were from perl.
Nicolas: Larry Wall seems like he would use a term like this.
Jim: 1 point for the gutsiness of bucking the evidently-strong tide that wanted this to be an old folk-phrase.
Pierre: Two points for Perl diving.
Elliott: An attempt to avoid fairy-tale stepmother stereotypes without losing the connection to stepmothers altogether.  It would be more appropriate for ``Missionary's Blessing''. 

stepmother's blessing - n. - A plant, Plantago echinosa, introduced to New Zealand as sheep fodder, but which turned out to be a noxious weed.
>From Pierre.  No points.
Elliott: Why stepmother?  Why blessing? 

stepmother's blessing - n. - In Bavaria and other regions of southern Germany, a rose bush or other flowering shrub planted on the grave of a woman who died in childbirth.
>From Nicolas.  Elliott 2, correct guess 2 = 4 points.
Elliott: This story at least hangs together and makes some sense.  For once, I'm going to give two points for plausibility. 

stepmother's blessing - n. - When a stepmother stops being afraid of taking care of children not her own by birth and decides to love them, that is a blessing indeed.  With so many mythologically and psychologically derogatory messages about wicked stepmothers, and even taboos against mothers-in-law, a stepmother's blessing is a healing and nurturing action when you might be expecting the opposite. 
>From Linda.  Elliott 1 = 1 point.
Elliott: Ahhh, unexpected kindness, like a Samaritan's Blessing.  One point for unexpectedness.

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