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Short Stuff: Victorian Flower Language · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck. And that's all that needs mentioning today because
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: it's just us. So this is short.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Stuff, that's right. And by the way, I wanted to
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: thank you for sending over that beautiful nosegay of wilted
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: white roses, delivered upside down with the ribbon to the left.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Well, may I ask where on your chest? Are you
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: wearing it near my bodice in the center or right
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in the center?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Baby?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess we're good friends. Then I can live
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: with that. Although I'm not sure what I was saying
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: with the whole thing.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It's kind of yeah, i'd have to get out a
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: code decoder book or whatever.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Well they had those, Chuck. What we're talking about was floriography,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and there were a lot of floriography books, because it
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: turns out floriography was a huge deal in the Victorian
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and Regency areas. I guess between a couple of decades
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: on either side of the nineteenth and twentieth century divide
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the DMZ of those centuries. As it were, this was
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it was really popular to send unspoken messages using flowers.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That's right, unspoken because at the time in the UK
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and parts of the US, obviously in Europe in certain
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: you know, high societies, mainly you could not speak these
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: things allowed a lot of times it was untoward. So
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: you had to have a coded way of talking to
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: each other. And if you're thinking like, oh, yeah, you
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: send flowers to someone and that means something, Yeah, it
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: goes deep. I mean it is literally a code. And
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: that's what I was kind of referring to with the
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: upside down and the wilted and the where the ribbons tied,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: like all that stuff means something.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, it is quite deep, and you can
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: send quite complex messages and what kind of show what
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. But first I want to shout out
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: some great sources that helped with this Farmer's Almanac. The
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Iowa State University Extension, Pedal Republic, it's a great name.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Author Sarah on Substack, Clive Rose, Georgina Garden Center, Thursdad,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: just the d flower Meaning and historical Holly all help
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  Speaker 1: us this. So thanks to all of you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's wonderful. So this is nothing new or was
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: nothing new back then. Coded messages through flowers goes back
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to the sixteen hundreds at least in the Ottoman Empire,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: when they had a tradition called selim or sealim se
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: l a m, which was a game where between the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: members of the Harem of Constantinople, where they would send
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: flowers attached with like rhymes and meanings and stuff like
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that to communicate with one another.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which made sense because a lot of them couldn't
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: read or write, so flowers did the talking forum. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this actually spread from the Ottoman Empire to Europe via
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: one single person, a British aristocrat who is married to
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the British Ambassador to Turkey. Her name was Lady Mary Wortley,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and she would send back letters to friends and family
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: describing all of the new and exotic customs of this
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: land that she had moved to. She moved to Constantinople,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and among them was a description of salam or salam selim,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: which how did you say it?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I said, sell them or selim. I'm not sure if
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: it's a long or shorty.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Well, the flower coat that the harrm workers had come
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: up with. She wrote a letter about that, and somebody
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: got it and said, this is great. I want to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: tell everybody in the UK about it.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: That's right. And by the way, I mentioned a couple
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: of puns in the Operation Paul Bunyan episode. Which one
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: were you thinking because you said you remembered.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: One that the code stemmed back.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: That's the only one I can think of.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Well, no, here's the other one. Botany was a growing field.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: How did I miss that pun sensor is covered with dirt?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Well, no, that's good. You want to pack some mud
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: on that thing.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I know, but I don't like walking past stuff. I
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like to take part, you know, and be involved in
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the mix.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So botany was a growing field, and floriography was, like
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I said, among certain classes, you know, mainly upper class women,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: because you know, it wasn't like the kind of thing
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that you could really talk about openly in that class.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And this is one thing I haven't seen Emily yet
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: today because she got out of the house early. But
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask her because she's, you know, like
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of GenEx women are obsessed with Jane Austen
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: stuff and sense and sensibility and all those series and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: movies and books, and I wondered if she knew about
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  Speaker 2: this or if they in those because I've never watched
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: any of them, if they were kind of pointed stuff out, like, oh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: he sent the flowers this way and that means this.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But that's I mean, that's the Browni sisters and Jane
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Austin used a lot of floriography to help kind of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: develop their characters, which I guess, so I guess they did. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they definitely did. And the readers at the time probably
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: would have picked up this. But floriography is it's become
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: so arcane and obscure that modern readers would not pick
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  Speaker 1: up on it. But if you learn about floriography and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you start reading Jane Austin, apparently it'll show up.
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  Speaker 2: Oh well, no, that's what I was wondering if in
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the books and they said, like, oh, will he sent
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: an upside down thing which means blah blah blah.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, they would do that. I found a quote
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: from Pride and Prejudice from Jane Austen.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Ooh, can you read it in character?
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's the narrator, so sure, I guess I can,
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  Speaker 1: because the narrator sounds exactly like me. Yeah, but Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: Bennett is giving a flower to mister Darcy, and the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: narrator describes she gave a red rose to tell him
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that she loved him Red Rose, red red red, red
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  Speaker 1: red Rose Rose Rose, red red Rose, red Rose, red Rose,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: red red red red. And then in the i think
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the first edition, the word red is just repeated over
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and over for three pages before it just stops. In
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: a new chapter starts.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: That's so hot. Yeah, all right, I need to go
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: cool down. Should we take a break?
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: All right, we'll come back and tell you about a
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: lot of this what these coated flowers mean right after this.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: listen to h Suffus stuffus. No, so, Chuck, you mentioned
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that I gave you a nosegay. Another great word for
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a nosegay is a tuessy mussy, and floriography in the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Victorian Age started to get popular at the same time
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that tuessy mussies and nosegays were popular too. And they're
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: really kind of small, short, tightly bound bouquets that you
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  Speaker 1: would kind of wear, almost as like a booteneer or
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a corsage. Okay, they were made of flowers and herbs,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: so not just flowers, but herbs had their own meanings too,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: so like rosemary was for remembrance and mint was for clarity.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Moss even had its own meaning charity or maternal love.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Throw a violet in there, maybe for modesty. If you
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: put all those together in a little tussy musty and
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: gave it to somebody, you would be saying something like,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I modestly ask you to clearly remember me with either
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: charity or maternal love your pick.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which would be a very confusing message. It would
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: be paging doctor Freud on that one, for sure. So
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: the obviously, you know, the type of flower is gonna matter.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: The color of the flower is gonna matter. Many messages
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: could be sent. If you wanted to send a message
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  Speaker 2: of rejection or disappointment, it could be a yellow carnation
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  Speaker 2: or a yellow rose. But if you send a yellow lily,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: that means that you're just sort of over the moon
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and walking on air.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously, the red rose is going to mean I love
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  Speaker 2: you you. White rose is purity, a yellow roses loss
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: of love, and a crimson rose is for morning with
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: mu are right?
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  Speaker 1: And I mean like that is just skimming the surface.
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  Speaker 1: Just the color of different types of roses, right, or
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  Speaker 1: different color roses the state that the flowers and mattered
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a lot too. You may mention, I think of a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: withered rose in the tussy mussy I gave you. If
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you gave somebody just a plain white rose, you could
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  Speaker 1: be saying, like, I think you're heavenly, you're very pure,
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  Speaker 1: and I like that. But if the white rose was withered,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you were telling them that they made no impression on
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  Speaker 1: you whatsoever, or that you think their beauty is fleeting,
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  Speaker 1: so remember that. And then if it was dried, you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: were saying, I would rather die than to give into
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: your advances because I care about my virtue. And I'm
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: sure you could be like, you know, if you gave
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  Speaker 1: somebody a withered rose, would you'd be like, is this
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  Speaker 1: dried or withered? What are you trying to stay? Here?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: So I know how much was like in the beholder's eye?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean translation is important, and you know
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we'll get to that here in a sec. But a
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  Speaker 2: thornless rose means you've fallen in love at first sight.
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  Speaker 2: Thornless crimson rose means you're mourning, because remember crimson rose
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  Speaker 2: this morning, but you're mourning an unrequited love at first sight.
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  Speaker 2: And also the context really matters like you know, you
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  Speaker 2: obviously kind of know what's going on between you. It's
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: when you're getting these or you know you're you're seeking clarity,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: but you you know there's an established thing kind of
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: happening here for your own context. So if you get
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  Speaker 2: a hydrangea, it can be thanking the receiver for understanding,
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  Speaker 2: or that you think they're frigid and heartless. So you
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  Speaker 2: really got to kind of have a read on the
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  Speaker 2: general air of the relationship.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, same with like petunias. You could be saying you
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  Speaker 1: soothed me or I resent to you. So the context
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  Speaker 1: definitely mattered. But the reason why like hydranges and peonies
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  Speaker 1: and almost all of the flowers had multiple meanings was
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  Speaker 1: not because they needed to pull double duty because we
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: didn't have enough flowers and enough colors. Like if you
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: put all those together, you have a mind boggling number
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  Speaker 1: of combinations. So that wasn't it. The reason they had
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: multiple meanings was because there were many, many different floriography
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  Speaker 1: books and essentially a lot of them just assign different
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: meanings to different flowers. Yeah, so when you gave somebody flowers,
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  Speaker 1: especially if there wasn't a lot of context yet, you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: were just hoping that you guys were working from the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: same book.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's that's huge.
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  Speaker 1: I think there were ninety eight different guides just in
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the United States alone that were circulating from eighteen twenty
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: seven to nineteen twenty three.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Not helpful at all. And then you know, I also
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: mentioned that they were presented upside down. That also matters.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: If they are upside down, that's it basically says it's
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: opposite day. So I guess you're trying to sort of
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: maybe confuse if like if Mum is looking on and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: sees these flowers, But it would seem like Mum would
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: know about opposite day too, So I'm not really sure.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: You know why they would do that, Maybe to throw
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: somebody off the scent. Who knows. How the ribbon was
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: tied also matters. Tied to the left, it's the symbolism
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: is applied to the giver, Right, it's tied to the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: right if it's in reference to the recipient.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know, this is how deep it kits.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It could also express a lot of negative meanings, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's what you were doing when you handed
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a bouquet upside down. You'd have to be pretty sharp
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to put a bunch of mean flowers in and then
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: hand it to the person upside down to let them
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: know you meant the opposite.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's a lot of trouble to go through.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Right there. Were Like you could be talking about jealousy
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: with marigolds. You could be expressing distrust with lavender orange
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: lily straight up said I hate you. You could say
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I feel deceived with snapdragons. You could declare war with
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a flower called a tansy, which I hadn't heard of before.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But it's like a bunch a bunch of like small
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: yellow flowers to get there, unlike a single stalk.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, I thought that might have been a misprint pansy,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: but I literally looked at my computer keyboard and it
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: was like, nah, I bet it's that team the peer
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: pretty far apart.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I didn't know that that flower existed,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: but by goodness it does.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Also, accepting also mattered. So depending on which hand you
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: accepted the flowers with sent a message, which I guess would.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're handing them in person, you would know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: but if not, you had to have it relayed back
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: to you. Yeah, if you accepted with the right hand,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it was a yes. The left hand was a no.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: If you held the bouquet upside down after getting it,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: that's rejection. If someone gave you a wisteria, maybe like
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: asking for a dance at a dance, you would hold
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: it upside down with your left hand if you wanted
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: to say no, thank.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You, right yeah, you were really saying I'm passing with
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that because you're that's a double no, although the person
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: giving it could be like, is that a double negative?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Like a yes? Is it opposite day? So you could also,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: as the receiver, send flowers in return too, like if
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: somebody actually sent you flowers or a bouquet with a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: message and didn't physically hand it to you, you could
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: reply with flowers yourselves. Carnations came in handy for that.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: If you sent a solid colored carnation, it meant yes.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: A yellow carnation was a big fat no. A striped
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: carnation was letting them down a little easier, but it
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: was still a no. It said I'm sorry, but I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: can't be with you.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I wonder which flower meant like, you know, are you down?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: There was something like that out there. I guarantee you
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know which one, Yeah, but there was definitely something.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And then the last part. I asked you where you
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: were wearing your nosegay, and you said in the center
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of your bodice, which meant I just want to be friends.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: But if you had warned over your heart, Chuck, I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: would have known that you were saying, I love you
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: right back, buddy.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Hey, I do love you right back, buddy. Just you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: not like that.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I understand. I took my shot. Yeah, I guess, then,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Chuck us short stuff is out, I think so. Stuff
• 14:09
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• 14:11
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