Mary Kate, Ashley, and Charles Dickens
Have the Olsen twins been reading Little Dorrit?
The New York Observer reports that the “puckered smile that makes the Olsen twins’ seem engaged (”We’re happy to be here!”) yet reserved (”Teeth are so crass!”) has a name. It’s called “the Prune.”"
And I am reminded of my friend Frostine’s wonderful (but alas, silent) blog Prunes and Prism. The title of Frostine’s blog refers to a passage she came across on Merrycoz.org, a website devoted to “early 19th-century American works for children,” and it follows:
RULES FOR YOUNG LADIES: Some arch advice on snagging a husband. Exercising the mouth into a pretty shape through repetition of certain words seems to have been an indoor sport for young nineteenth-century girls; in Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens’ overly bred girl repeats, “papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism.”