Carey dug this out of the closet for Greta yesterday, after she put on a polka dot shirt herself. Anybody know the origin of the word polka? Do the dots and the dance have something in common?
Per the Web: "The polka dot is a dot or round spot repeated regularly to form a pattern especially on a textile fabric. It was so named not because of any Polish origin, or even because of any popularity of the pattern among polka dancers, but because of the popularity of the dance itself. The polka was such a hit in mid-nineteenth century England that the word polka was attached to various commercial products without any real connection to the dance: "The polka was so popular," wrote a historian in 1898, "that it absorbed every other dance for a time. Articles of food, of clothing and of ornament, were named after it."
I give you props for looking it up, but was really wondering if readers knew WITHOUT resorting to what Stephen Colbert so appropriately calls, "the Internets."
I think perhaps we all know nothing these days. The Internet has made knowledge obsolete!
One cannot know everything. The internet increases knowledge. Now we, your readers, know more about the word "polka" than we ever actually wanted to know. :-)
Carey dug this out of the closet for Greta yesterday, after she put on a polka dot shirt herself. Anybody know the origin of the word polka? Do the dots and the dance have something in common?
Per the Web: "The polka dot is a dot or round spot repeated regularly to form a pattern especially on a textile fabric. It was so named not because of any Polish origin, or even because of any popularity of the pattern among polka dancers, but because of the popularity of the dance itself. The polka was such a hit in mid-nineteenth century England that the word polka was attached to various commercial products without any real connection to the dance: "The polka was so popular," wrote a historian in 1898, "that it absorbed every other dance for a time. Articles of food, of clothing and of ornament, were named after it."
ReplyDeleteI give you props for looking it up, but was really wondering if readers knew WITHOUT resorting to what Stephen Colbert so appropriately calls, "the Internets."
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps we all know nothing these days. The Internet has made knowledge obsolete!
One cannot know everything. The internet increases knowledge. Now we, your readers, know more about the word "polka" than we ever actually wanted to know. :-)
ReplyDelete