| 释义 |
Grundy3|ˈgrʌndɪ|
The surname of an imaginary personage (Mrs. Grundy) who is proverbially referred to as a personification of the tyranny of social opinion in matters of conventional propriety.
In Morton's play Speed the Plough (1798), Dame Ashfield is represented as constantly fearing to give occasion for the sneers of her neighbour, Mrs. Grundy. Her frequent question ‘What will Mrs. Grundy say?’ became proverbial (prob. with especial reference to the passage quoted below) as expressing the attitude of those who regard the disapproval of society as the worst of evils.
1798T. Morton Speed the Plough ii. iii. (1801) 29 Dame Ashfield. If shame should come to the poor child [her daughter] —I say, Tummas, what would Mrs. Grundy say then? Farmer Ashfield. Dom Mrs. Grundy; what wou'd my poor wold heart zay? 1813Examiner 15 Mar. 170/2 What will Mrs. Grundy say? a1845Hood Open Question i, Now, really, this appears the common case Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday—But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? 1857Locker Lond. Lyrics (1874) 102 And many are afraid of God—And more of Mrs. Grundy. 1896Daily News 26 Oct. 6/3 Without the smallest regard for the Grundy tribe in office or out of it. 1899R. Broughton Game & Candle 129 You do not mean to imply..that Mrs. Grundy is going to interpose between you and me?
Hence ˈGrundified ppl. a., arranged according to the ideas of Mrs. Grundy; ˈGrundyish a., prudish; ˈGrundyism, the principles of Mrs. Grundy, conventionalism; ˈGrundyist, ˈGrundyite, a stickler for propriety.
1836Backw. Canada 270 Having shaken off the trammels of Grundyism, we laugh at..those who voluntarily forge afresh and hug their chains. 1845Tennyson in Mem. (1897) I. 227 Us poor devils, whom the Grundyites would not only not remunerate, but kick out of society as barely respectable. 1883‘Wanderer’ Notes Caucasus vi. 149 Unfit, in this Grundyish age, for print. 1889Jrnl. Educ. 1 June 282/1 Perhaps, after all, our rules were but a set of conventional observations; our system but a sort of grammatical grundyism. 1890T. Hardy in New Rev. Jan. 19, Unreal and meretricious, but dear to the Grundyist and subscriber. 1893Lady Burton Life R. F. Burton II. 258 The usual small worries and Grundified conventions that form the cab-shafts of domestic life in civilization. |