Lunchtime reading has changed my understanding again. Maureen Waller, "1700, Scenes from London Life" is good stuff. Chapter two opens with gossips gathering to witness childbirth. Women who had spiritual or kinship ties would gather round with two purposes: to certify to legal authorities, if the baby died, that all was done that could be done, and secondly, to divert the woman in labor. A gossip was like a godparent. (Check your O.E.D.) A loquacious godparent, "for gossips to meet at a lying-in, and not to talk, you may as well dam up the arches of London Bridge, as stop their mouths at such a time." Whence the modern meaning.
Carry on. David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
