{"id":50062,"date":"2023-09-23T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=50062"},"modified":"2023-09-22T09:14:03","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T13:14:03","slug":"qotd-in-which-we-discover-why-theyre-called-antimacassars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/09\/23\/qotd-in-which-we-discover-why-theyre-called-antimacassars\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: In which we discover why they&#8217;re called antimacassars"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;Antimacassar&#8221; is such a lovely Victorianism. We still have antimacassars &mdash; they&#8217;re those pieces of protective fabric you see at the top of your train or plane seat &mdash; but do you know why antimacassars are so called? Because in the nineteenth century Rowland&#8217;s Macassar Oil became such a popular unguent for gentlemen&#8217;s coiffures that the land was full of oily-haired chaps who, upon entering your drawing room, would settle back in your favorite chair &mdash; and uh-oh, there goes the fabric. Hence, the vital deployment of the antimacassar. Rowland&#8217;s Macassar Oil was one of the first products to be marketed nationally (and, indeed, internationally), and so universally known that Lewis Carroll put it in <em>Alice Through the Looking-Glass<\/em>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>His accents mild took up the tale: <br \/>He said &#8216;I go my ways, <br \/>And when I find a mountain-rill, <br \/>I set it in a blaze; <br \/>And thence they make a stuff they call <br \/>Rowlands&#8217; Macassar-Oil \u2013 <br \/>Yet twopence-halfpenny is all<br \/>\nThey give me for my toil.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Better yet, in <em>Don Juan<\/em> Lord Byron managed to rhyme it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>In virtue, nothing earthly could surpass her<br \/>\nSave thine &#8216;incomparable oil&#8217;, Macassar!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mark Steyn, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steynonline.com\/9588\/self-knitting-antimacassars\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Self-Knitting Antimacassars&#8221;, <em>Steyn Online<\/em><\/a>, 2019-08-02.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Antimacassar&#8221; is such a lovely Victorianism. We still have antimacassars &mdash; they&#8217;re those pieces of protective fabric you see at the top of your train or plane seat &mdash; but do you know why antimacassars are so called? Because in the nineteenth century Rowland&#8217;s Macassar Oil became such a popular unguent for gentlemen&#8217;s coiffures that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4,831,7,41],"tags":[97,1395,592],"class_list":["post-50062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-britain","category-business","category-history","category-quotations","tag-advertising","tag-furniture","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-d1s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50062"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84903,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50062\/revisions\/84903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}