Victorian Era

For anyone who thinks texting lingo is ruining the English language, maybe it's time to consider shorthand is really nothing new.

People have been shortening words into abbreviations and acronyms for centuries (IOU, an acronym for "I owe you," was coined in 1618), and Victorian poets, those beacons of propriety, were writing abbreviated poetry 150 years ago.

Instead of calling it the death of the English language, though, they called it emblematic poetry and valued it as a clever form of posy. The British Library is preparing an exhibit devoted to the English language of the last 1,500 years. One piece will be an emblematic poem from 1867 called "An Essay to Miss Catherine Jay."

Here are a few choice lines.

• To U, sweet K T J (Katie J, I presume?)
• I wrote 2 U B 4
• He says he loves U 2 X S.
• U R virtuous and Y's
• Now fare you well dear K T J.
• In X L N C U X L

X L N C U X L? I don't know either!

The Young Victoria is finally debuting in the US this Friday, after its UK premiere earlier this year. Other than marrying her cousin and having a stuffy, misogynistic era named after her, I've never thought much of the queen. But the trailer for The Young Victoria depicts her as a vibrant young woman, aware of her of burden but determined to find happiness.

The Victorian era was not a good time for women. They were expected to be selfless, pure, and pretty much perfect. The Victorian Angel of the House was a common theme in literature, which Virginia Woolf best described in "Professions For Women:"

She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draft, she sat in it — in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all — I need not say it — she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty — her blushes, her great grace. In those days — the last of Queen Victoria — every house had its Angel.

Was the Victorian Angel of the House made in the likeness of the queen? To find out, read more