Date:  Wed, 8 Oct 1997 15:31:01 -0600
From:  charles fritz juengling <cjuengling[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STCLOUDSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Weeds

I know the term, but do not use it. I'm not sure I have ever heard it in
conversation, but know it as you do--a literary term.
Fritz Juengling
St. Cloud State University
Minnesota
>I don't remember where I first encountered the term "widow's weeds," but
>it was clear to me that it was archaic/literary, and it was always clear
>from the context that it meant "clothes that a widow wears to a funeral."
>I don't think I've ever run across this "weed" (<OE waed, imagine a
>ligature and a macron) either in the singular or without the "widow."
>
>I was astonished recently to run across someone (a copyeditor for a major
>publishing house, yet) who claimed not to understand the term at all, and
>further investigation revealed that college-age people I asked not only
>had never encountered it but were unable to guess its meaning even when
>offered the context, "At the funeral, the grandmother wore widow's weeds."
>("Some kind of plant?!" one wondered.) The older the person asked, the
>more likely they were to have heard it, or if they said they had never
>heard it, they could still guess that it meant mourning clothes generally
>or perhaps some specific item of clothing.
>
>My question: does anyone know if this term ("weed" or "weeds," with or
>without the widow) survives anywhere in living speech?
>
>Peter McGraw

Fritz Juengling
Foreign Languages and Literature Department
St. Cloud State University