Hi, my name is Ellie Dashwood.
And today, we'll be talking about five words you need to know to be able to
better understand Pride and Prejudice.
So maybe, recently you've been reading this or maybe you've been
or watching lists or, my favorite, maybe you've been watching this.
Whatever the case, you may have come across some words that don't sound super
familiar to modern ears, or maybe they do sound super familiar, but the people
in the movie or in the book, are you using them in ways you do not understand.
So let's go over five common words in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen's
other works that sort of have either a different meaning today, or we
just don't use it at all anymore.
The first one is fortnight.
You come across this pretty soon in Pride and Prejudice.
When the ball where they meet, Mr.
Darcy is in a fortnight.
And what is the fortnight?
It is 14 days or two weeks.
And that was a pretty common amount of time you would give someone if
you're going to invite them to a ball.
I wish people would invite me to ball.
If you're having a ball, like a Regency ball, please invite me to this ball.
And I wouldn't even care if it's only in a fortnight.
The second is handsome.
Now we all understand that men are handsome, especially Mr.
Darcy.
However, what about all the women they keep calling handsome.
I mean, if the guy walked up to me and was like, "You're handsome."
I'd be like, "Are you saying, I look like a guy?"
Well, at least that is what I would do if I didn't obsessively watch period
dramas where all the women are handsome.
And the answer is during this time period, handsome just essentially meant beautiful.
Pretty.
Good-looking.
It was an equal opportunity word.
Women could be handsome just like men and it was a compliment.
So if a Regency man ever walks up to you and says you were quite
handsome, take it as a compliment.
Also be like, did you come through through a time machine?
Or are you just wearing that costume for the fun of it?
Recently, my uncle watched this drama and now he goes around saying the women
are handsome about all the movies.
It's like, "Oh, there's handsome women in that movie".
I'm just like, "Seriously, Uncle Ray?
You're just going to start calling all the women handsome now that
you saw Pride and Prejudice once?"
Three engagement.
Now there's a scene in this version of Pride and Prejudice
where Charlotte Lucas tells Lizzie that she's engaged to somebody.
Because you can't have spoilers of who Charlotte Lucas is
going to marry in this movie.
And she says, "I'm engaged."
And Lizzie responds with like, "To be married?"
And she's like, "What other kind of engaged is there, Lizzie?"
In Pride and Prejudice there are a lot of type of engagements.
In fact, the word engagement was used for several different things.
It could be engaged to be married.
It could also mean you had an engagement, sort of like an appointment.
I have an engagement for dinner with my friend over there.
I have an engagement with my doctor.
I have a speaking engagement.
And it also could mean that someone has asked you to dance later.
Because back in this time too, at the ball that you should be inviting me to,
please, there was essentially they would carry around cards depending on the ball.
And we would write down who was asking for what dance.
Like, so some guy could come up to you and be like, "Can I
engage you for the second dance?"
And you'd be like, "Yes.
You may have that second dance."
And so you'd be engaged for a dance.
So there are so many different types of engagement and engagements.
So if someone says they're engaged with somebody that doesn't necessarily mean
that they are going to marry them, they might just be having dinner with them or
giving them the second dance at the ball.
The fourth word is cousin.
Now you may have noticed that there's a lot of cousins in Jane Austen's world.
And the answer is they're not all technical cousins.
At least in modern terms in America, we think of cousin as in
like, "Hey, that's my aunt's kid."
But no, it could be, in Regency England, it could be like your
half-brothers wife's younger brother.
Which I guess we would call our sister-in-law's brother.
But they would call that guy, their cousin.
And so when someone in a Jane Austen movie says someone's their cousin.
Don't just assume that that they're literally their cousin, but it could
just be through marriage or like even Mr.
Collins is not their first cousin.
He's like their second cousin once removed or something.
And so cousin does not always mean cousin in Pride and Prejudice.
Five connection.
Now, connection sort of related to cousin, it has to do with your family and who
you're related to and who your family is related to and who they married.
It's essentially your broader family social network.
And this was very important in marriage and who you knew.
And it's a social status thing, which is why in Pride and Prejudice,
especially you see it in this one when Miss Bingley's like, "Oh,
their connections are horrible."
They're talking about the fact that Lizzy and Jane and them, their
relatives are not high ranking.
They're not rich.
And the higher connections you have, or essentially the higher socially
ranking your relatives are the more sort of socially appealing you are.
Because if Mr.
Darcy married somebody whose aunt was the Queen, that's way better than marrying
someone for example whose mother is Mrs.
Bennett.
Mrs.
Bennett is a very low connection to marry in to.
So essentially connections where the people you're related to.
It's like a currency, almost connections where.
Like, even if you poor but you had really good connections that was a plus.
But if you're poor and you had bad connections, that's no good.
And if you were rich and you have bad connections, even that was sort of choppy
because you had a lot of like nouveau riche or people who are newly rich,
maybe through trade or through the Navy.
And they weren't of family, AKA they did not have well to do
family names and relatives that went back for hundreds of years.
And so that was not very good for them.
So those were our five words for today.
We have fortnight, handsome engagement, cousin and connection.
I hope these words will help you better understand Jane Austen's works,
especially Pride and Prejudice, the next time you read or watch them.
And I hope you have a great day.
Please subscribe to my channel for more awesome videos about Jane
Austen and classic literature.
And let me know if you have any questions you'd like me to feature on my Dashie
Notes episodes, where I answer modern day questions about classic literature.
Have an awesome day.