The meaning of jaded seems even more direct- ‘To become weary or spiritless’

Does Francis expand on that? One of the things I found really strange when looking at this word was that no-one ever seems to explain what this ‘term of reproach’ actually means – is it sexual? to do with messiness? nagging? As I say in the article, I just ended up assuming it was a simple transf. sense from ‘worthless horse’ (which makes it pretty much the exact opposite to ‘Jade’ as a name), but then ‘slut’ originally just meant ‘slattern’ and then the idea of slovenliness in dress got extended to slovenliness in morals. Yet Jade never really seems to progress out of a simple expanded use of the horse sense.
Funny.
Thanks for reading!

There you go!

Excellent as always, Hodge. :)

Well, I’m stretching Rhett’s warning ‘Now Bonnie, you’ve only just learnt to ride side-saddle’ to its ultimate possible extent, but it makes sense. When he first starts teaching her, I think it’s supposed to show how much he loves her, and how she’s inherited his sort of bravery and dashingness, cos he’s determined that she should be able to out-ride every man and woman in the county…

Oh God, Gone With the Wind! I grew up with that movie. I hadn’t realised it was riding side-saddle that did for Bonnie! I just thought it was her reckless “just like papa” haste and speed! Fascinating stuff.

Hodge, we need to have a film night.

Ah side saddle! That raises a whole host of issues. In my novel “Margaret”, I wished my hero (Margaret) to sit astride the horse, but thought that she might well have been obliged to learn to ride side saddle. For that reason, I made side saddle/astride a class issue as well as a gender one. I’m not sure whether (historically) it has been a class issue, but class and gender issues are certainly often entangled with each other. This conversation takes place before Margaret’s first riding lesson:

“We have a pair of riding boots for her, of course,” my mother replied, “silly for Margaret not to have put them on this morning. And I agree that a plainer, darker coloured dress would be more appropriate, or perhaps a skirt and blouse. But Margaret has no breeches. Surely you don’t envisage her sitting astride the pony?”

“Of course, I do!” Miss Fletcher said heartily. “Side saddle may be all very well for a country physician’s wife, or the daughter of a penny-counter in the city. But Margaret is a princess — the Blood Victoria roars through her veins.”

“Quite right!” grandfather added with considerable emphasis. “My own dear mother — may the goddesses be kind to her — always rode astride. She was what you might call a roaring woman. Of course, Carlotta, Margaret’s grandmother — may the goddesses touch her gently — was different, a more feminine lady.”

“Indeed she was,” mother agreed. “And she saw nothing wrong in my riding side saddle — quite the reverse.”

“Yes,” grandfather said, I thought a little sadly, “but, although I loved Carlotta dearly, she wasn’t from what I’d call one of the first families.”

“She came from solid and respectable stock,” my mother retorted angrily.

“Quite, quite, my dear.” Then, addressing Miss Fletcher, rather than my mother, grandfather continued: “You see, I was the fourth son, never expected to inherit the title, so there was no bar to my marrying whomsoever I chose. Then…” he counted on his fingers, “Ronald died in a hunting accident — savage nazeman — Stewart was slain battle — a cavalry charge against Melissa Murder’s artillery — and John fell to some plague or other. So I found myself with the earldom, although my wife’s family weren’t quite as one might expect.”

Well, there’s the idea that the *Shrew* talks about, of ‘bearing’, ‘riding’ etc. Horses can be a kind of renaissance equivalent to ‘the village bicycle’ or, via punning reference to ‘bearing’, they can be the maternal woman.

Horse riding is a very interesting historical phenomenon, of course – it’s one of the activities that spearheaded androgynous clothing, for example, but it’s also something that can be a womanly accomplishment (and display of spiritedness, in a good way).

Don’t forget side-saddle, too – was hoping to find a better video, but Bonnie in Gone With The Wind is a lovely (if very silly) little vignette of little girls and riding (and it’s the thing about Bonnie that Rhett Butler is most proud of) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJYCdCqf1Lw). If you remember, Rhett originally teaches her to ride like a man but then Mammie says this ‘ain’t fittin”, thus indirectly precipitating her death.

“I am, alas, no equine expert so I cannot claim to know how much of this derives from suspicious anthropomorphism and how much from observable truth. It sounds as dubious as similar assertions that ‘all’ women are mardy, but if some horse-fancier out there can prove otherwise, well, I bow to your superior wisdom, and toddle back tail-drawn to the dictionary, where it is safe and warm.”

I am also, alas, no equine expert, but would be extremely interested to learn the truth of this matter. My novels, set in a future without the internal combustion engine, feature horses and ponies to a considerable extent. I have taken the liberty (in my fiction) of reversing the historical attitude to equines of one or other sex — and have made mares the preferred mounts. I did this by gut feeling, or perhaps an extended feminism, rather than any solid information. I’d love to know whether I’ve written nonsense in this regard.