Comments on: Proprieties and Usages of Good Society — Lesson IX. Shopping

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:20:56 +0000

There are some grocery delivery services in the US. Peapod, WeGoShop and Safeway offer limited area delivery. I’m sure there are others. When we lived in Maryland we used Peapod a few times. But the work of knowing what you want ahead of time was too much to keep up for very long. I guess that is what the lesson was trying to promote. Plus we felt it was perceptively more expensive.

By: Alison

Alison — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:20:28 +0000

Very interesting to compare today’s shopping habits with those of another time. Like some of you, my curiosity was somewhat piqued by the reference to the economics of the typical Englishwoman; well, baffled would be a better way to describe it!
Mex, the term “floor-walker” reminded me exactly of “Are You Being Served?”!!

By: Mex Davis

Mex Davis — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:26:00 +0000

Actually I did enjoy this piece. ‘Jewing Down’, I’ve used that term years ago but not lately. I’m old and remember hearing that term alot. As far as the store part goes remains me of that BBC sitcom ‘Are You Being Served?’. You wonder if they shopped in old Mexico or Eastern markets where haggling over prices is expected and an honored method. Don’t run accounts…well there goes lay aways. Good day all.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:15:44 +0000

One of my favorite things (happens very rarely for some reason) is when my family helps bring in the groceries and household goods after I’ve been shopping. For one shopping trip, I figure that I handle the goods at least five times: once to place in the cart, once to place on the check-out register, once to load into the car, once to bring into the house, and once to put away. It’s a labor-intensive process, and add in a pregnancy or any sort of injury or disability, and it can quickly become onerous. Why are shopping and delivery services not more wide-spread?

By: Anne (U.K)

Anne (U.K) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:47:20 +0000

‘Jewing down’??? Eeeewww. New one on me.

it would be, I think, politic not to comment on the shopping habits of the English woman!

By: Moniker Challenged

Moniker Challenged — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:36:49 +0000

Meh. I think I have enjoyed this the least of all installments–though the fault be not yours, Ardis. To me, basic shopping and money handling seems intuitive, although obviously it isn’t if they bothered spelling it all out! Aside from the obviously distasteful characterization of Jews, I wonder why the author thought all Englishwomen were tidy shoppers and money managers. I’ve heard cheap Scots jokes, but this stereotype doesn’t seem to have made it into the present day. Anyway, I’m looking forward to funeral etiquette after this! I shall continue to decline to kiss dead husks, no matter what they say.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:39:17 +0000

Ah, Researcher, you obviously grew up in a more enlightened time or place than some of the rest of us. (What!? There’s someplace more enlightened than Utah Valley?!?)

But that term wasn’t by any means limited to that benighted corner of the Intermountain West. I remember joking with a Jewish attorney at the firm where I worked in the mid-80s, and she said she had heard the term first from her “very own husband!”–who was not Jewish.

I also heard someone say once that there were so many tightfisted Mormons that before long that crass term would be replaced by another: “He wanted $50 for it, but I Mormoned him down to $45.”

Except for baba ghannouj (which apparently can be spelled anyway you want), I can’t imagine anything useful that could be done with eggplants.

That opening line about “women do[ing] the shopping of the world” reminds me of the statement made by one of our children years ago: “Daddy goes to work. And Mommy goes to Pathmark.” (Substitute Safeway or Costco or Walmart or Giant Eagle or Wawa or whatever–it works in any language.) That may have even made it into the morning prayers: “Bless Daddy to have a good day at work and Mommy to have a good time at Pathmark.”

Needless to say, She Who Must Be Obeyed was not amused.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:09:44 +0000

To buy a thing because it is cheap, at a time when you do not particularly want it, is the most questionable economy in the world.

Urgh. That reminds me of some eggplants I had to throw out the other day. (They were very inexpensive, but I never could work them into the menu.)

“Jewing down.” That’s awful. I’m glad that’s not a term I’d ever heard before today.

Besides that term, and the details about store accounts and home delivery (it would be nice to have home delivery of milk, in particular) it sounds like the principles of being a consumer are much the same today as they were a century ago.