The Chalet School 2 - Still talking about it a century later!

[ShellacB]

Hi everyone. Here is the new thread!

I reckon “bouncing Bet” is another example of EBD hearing slang and not understanding the nuances - so weird to use it about a 10 year old.

Bouncing Bet is a flower. It's a common name for soapwort.

Yes, but a tiny pink wildflower isn’t really much of an explanation for why Joey uses the phrase repeatedly to describe the healthy, tall, broad, post-Canada Margot — she says it in a letter to Hilda in Wrong and then says it again to Frieda in Joey Goes to the Oberland when Frieda is worried about her Gretchen. There she glosses ‘Bouncing Bet’ as ‘plump and rosy and boisterous’.

The thing I find weird about EBD giving Joey this expression is that Bouncing Betty was the nickname given to a type of WW2 bomb, a type of land mine that propelled itself into the air before exploding for maximum damage, I think invented by Germany but widely copied. I mean, it makes more sense as an origin for the way EBD uses the idiom, but it’s not that long after the war, and comparing your newly healthy daughter to a landmine reads a bit strangely to me!

I thought "Bouncing Bet" equated to "growing like a weed" - something I have often said about my own children.