Monday March 3, 2025
Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.
Daily Diary, Day 1643:
First off, I want to welcome all the people who have subscribed to this daily newsletter and/or my monthly newsletter since yesterday morning, which is when I announced on my author facebook page that I was going to stop posting there.
I started this daily diary on that FB author page during covid, over four and a half years ago, and I really appreciated the likes and comments I got there, particularly during lock down. But for a variety of reasons, I just don’t feel as if the page was serving me or the people who had followed me on that page anymore. I know that some of you had already shifted to following me here, for which I am eternally grateful, but I am also hoping the rest of those who had been actively following me on FB might join you all.
Deciding to do make this announcement, then writing the post, then sharing the post on my personal FB profile, then replying to the comments, all took a good deal of time yesterday. As did signing up to the social media site bluesky (mlouisalocke.bksy.social) for those people who didn’t want to subscribe to a newsletter like this. Never having been a big twitter (x) or instagram user, joining bluesky seemed to be a workable alternative since a number of authors I know have joined it.
On the other hand, I don’t imagine I will do more than provide links occasionally to my posts here-so I am certainly not suggesting any of you run out and join it (but would love if you followed me if you are already there, so I can follow you and see what you are up to.)
In addition to doing all of the above, I wrote and posted yesterday’s Small Moment of Delight piece, did the major cleaning downstairs which always take about 2 hours, then took a walk in the afternoon. I also figured out the schedule for putting up my next short story, Dandy’s Discovery, for free, including a couple of posts about Victorian pets.
And, there went yesterday!
This morning was the last yoga for the rest of the month (the teacher has surgery), and my regular dust and sweep. It is very windy today, so I am sort of looking forward to getting in two walks (I love walking in the wind). But first a shower and then the doggie play date with Rio. I also have two phone calls scheduled in the late afternoon, but I really, really, hope to get back to working on the plot before then (smile.)
Photo is of our dog Leeza sleeping with one of her stuffed animal tucked under her chin. As my mother would say, “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.” And now that I have written that, I don’t have a clue why that is a phrase she used to describe someone who was mischievous, but playing innocent! Going to have to go look that up!
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Originally, around 1530, the phrase was far less obscure than it may seem today, because when it first started being used, it was directly related to a person having a cold, detached and emotionless manner (where “cold” used in this way is an older metaphor itself). The idea was that a person was so cold that his mouth was at a temperature at which butter wouldn’t melt.
Evolution of the phrase
Throughout time the phrase “butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth” evolved.
From cold and detached, it came to be used to refer to people who were prim and proper, who acted by society’s rules regardless of their own feelings about any situation. (This disregard for their feelings is where the cold, emotionless side of the phrase came into the equation). For the purpose of doing the socially-determined “right” thing, girls may have pretended to be modest and shy, or high society men and women may have pretended to be interested in politics or theatre or whatever society deemed as the “proper” things to be interested in.
This is where the confusion of this phrase began
The meaning of the phrase began to branch in two directions:
Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth meaning “liar”:
Some people began associating the phrase with phony people in society who were putting on an act to fit in and be seen favorably. They lied about their true feelings and were therefore seen as insincere, liars or manipulators.
Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth meaning “sweet and innocent”:
Other people focused on the “prim and proper” nature that was a result of ignoring personal feelings for the sake of fulfilling society’s expectations. Throughout much of history, it was the prim and proper thing, especially amongst young ladies, to appear sweet and innocent; hence this new meaning became attached to the “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth” phrase.
When used in this sense however, there is often a negative twist on the phrase. When used to describe someone as sweet and innocent, it is almost always followed by a “but”.
A good example of this can be seen in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Pendennis (1850): “When a visitor comes in, she smiles and languishes, you’d think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth: [BUT] the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild”.
Over time, some people have forgotten the “but” and have begun associating the phrase with genuine sweet innocence, even though this isn’t the strictly correct use of the original phrase.
In essence, both of these definitions have some truth to them, but both definitions only tell part of the whole story. The full story is that “butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth” only if you are at some level acting in a way which is cold and detached from your true emotions.
from whydoi.com
Butter wouldn't melt: I've always thought it meant someone could play it very cool, not showing what they are really up to or that someone is very uppity and aloof. Curious to see what others have to say!