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04/17/2005: Expressional Migration
Some expressions translate everywhere, but occasionally you run into one that isn’t “understood” Nationally. I ran across one of my fav’s today: “Goody Two-Shoes" (or "Goodie Two-Shoes" ... depending one yer preference) in a USA Weekend article about [what else] a family in Las Vegas sponsoring a “Make a difference day” and providing new shoes for 500 children in the “Las Vegas Goodie Two Shoes Giveaway.”
But the meaning of this phrase is not necessarily a “goodie” one. As the Roget’s Thesaurus of Phrases describes:
Goody Two-Shoes: goody-goody, prig, prissy, prude, prudish, Puritan, straightlaced, straitlaced, Victorian.
When I was in Salt Lake City, Utah (that Sodom & Gomorrah of the West), back in the early 1980’s, I used this phrase one time to a group of local residents and was met with a bunch of blank stares, quizzical expressions and the follow up, “What’s that supposed to mean?” and “Wouldn’t that be like a 'Baddie One-Shoe'?” Clearly this one had not ever migrated into the language or phraseology to that environs.
And what’s the origin of this one? Anybody know the answer? Whence comes the expression: Goody Two-Shoes?
Karen on 04.17.05 @ 07:49 AM CST
