APRON
Wild Word Friday!
When I was a little girl, I was a very sloppy eater. I remember my parents having a serious discussion about how to deal with my inability to keep the food on my fork and off my clothes. Admonition, scolding, and shaming just didn’t seem to work, and I truly wanted to be a cleaner, neater child. However my hand-eye coordination was definitely inferior. They decided that asking a seven-year-old to wear a bib was just not something good for a little child’s psyche. My mother finally came up with the idea of an APRON. She made me an APRON, bless her heart! No embarrassment, my clothes were spared, and eventually I was able to eat with a little more couth.
So on occasion, I wonder about that first women who invented the APRON. What a smart idea. Anthropologists tell us that it’s quite likely that she borrowing the idea from the skirts worn in ancient fertility rites. Women wore those garments – more APRON than skirt – to ward off the demons who were set on destroying a woman’s ability to have, carry, and give birth to children.
Since then APRONs have been worn as a fashion statement and also, as in my case, as a handy way to preserve the cleanliness of a skirt.
When Middle French was spoken, the word given this piece of versatile clothing was naperon, which translates as cloth or napkin. By the 14th Century, the word had come to England as napron. In those days most people – especially women – were illiterate. They knew how to say the word, but never, of course, how it looked on the printed page. To them a napron was an APRON, and we still use the same word in modern English.
I still wear an APRON often, not to eat, but when I’m baking or cooking. It’s the perfect way to stay clean and enjoy the kitchen experience without paying for it later in another role as laundress! My husband doesn’t wear an APRON to grill, but I know many guys who do.
How about you? Do you wear an APRON?
Blessings!
Sue
(Some information from THE MERRIAM-WEBSTER NEW BOOK OF WORD HISTORIES. Photo from Wikipedia.)
Sue, I don’t wear a apron but just the word brings back lots of wonderful memories. My Grandma Savoie always had one on. She came here from Montreal, Quebec back in the early 1900’s and never learned English. Going to her house was filled with awesome smells and the french language. Although I never learned the language and none of my siblings or cousins did either, we all seem to understand her.. That apron she always wore dried hands, tears and just kept her clean.. She lived to be 92 and I still think of her often. Thank you for your Wild Word!!
Sue, I havent worn apron for years. Was sure the fashion & I had all colours & not sure why I still don’t use one in kitchen at times unspected accident’s happen when cooking.
I love these memories about your Grandma. I didn’t know that the Savoies came from Quebec. Isn’t it wonderful how all the children understood Grandma!
Trish, I’m a very sloppy cook. I definitely need my apron!