Why nosy parker

The popular Victorian novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon edited the Belgravia Magazine at that time and 'nosey parker' appeared there in the May edition, which seems to be the first example of the phrase's use in print:. You're a asking' too many questions for me, there's too much of Mr. Nosey Parker about you, an' I'd 'ave you to know as I'm a laidee. In the 17th century, 'nosey' was just a name for someone with a large nose although Archbishop Parker appears to have avoided that fate.

The Story leaves them, to tell who was the Knight of the Glasses and his nosier Squire. The word began to be used to mean 'inquisitive' from around the start of the 19th century. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Cascabel Rick Headlee Rick Headlee 61 1 1 bronze badge. Do you know in which year your great great grandmother, Eliza Stafford, emigrated to the US?

Did she come as a child with her parents? Or did she emigrate with her husband and children? Thank you so much for your first-hand account. What better reference is there than someone's personal experience living as a child in the States, and actually using an expression that dictionaries say is exclusively British? Similarly, I first heard the term "Nosey Parker" in the early s in Austin, Texas, on a visit to my grandmother's house, when she informed me that that's what I was I had been poking around in her bookshelves, I believe.

She was born in Ontario in the s her father had immigrated to Canada from Sutherland, Scotland, and her mother's family from somewhere in Germany a decade or more before she was born but had immigrated to Texas in her late teens or early twenties—certainly by I doubt that many other kids in Texas in the s were on the receiving end of "Nosy Parker.

DavePhD: Yep. That same movie or at least a movie with the same title was showing in various parts of Australia a year earlier, I believe. So it's not impossible that people from Palestine in northeast Texas spread the expression to Austin in central Texas and made it temporarily a known expression there. But I believe that it was virtually unknown in Corpus Christi, Houston, Austin, and Weimar, Texas—the places where I lived or visited frequently—during the s and s.

Add a comment. Many sources such as the 27 April To-day explain: Mr. Herbert Campbell gave us Nosey Parker, which evidently is going to be one of the pantomime tunes this year Another candidate, according to the book Unusual Words: And how They Came about , citing to From Ships to Sailors by Stanley Rogers is: Richard Parker, who so pushed his nose into things that should not have concerned him, that he was hanged from the yardarm of H.

Sandwich on 30th June, , for leading the Sheerness Mutiny of that year Additionally, there is an early example of the verb form in the article A Poet of the People , St.

James Gazette, 15 May , page 5, in the context of finding odd jobs: You have to go nosey-parkering about for 'em, you do, I give you my word. Could you find another reference for the song "Nosey Parker" dated ? I found a reference to a song sung by "Happy Tom Parker" dated He did have a signature tune written for him by songwriters Will Hyde composer and John L.

St John lyricist, the song was entitled "Nosey Parker" See also the "Public Health" quote "subsequently kept green through the efforts of an eccentric comedian, Happy Tom ".

Other references are the 22 April London and Provincial Entr'acte which says " Herbert Campbell gives great significance". Mari-LouA The 22 April article is reproduced here: arthurlloyd. Using your BNA link, I found a citation for You have to nosey parkering about for 'em which beats Oxford Dictionaries s citation by a massive margin.

Show 1 more comment. The earliest example of ' Poke Nose ' used as a name which I can track down comes from the Romance Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times, Ebenezer Richardson, however, could not see the fun of the thing. Nosing here and everywhere 'Nosey' as a name with no 'poke' or 'parker' crops up in Arabian Day's Entertainments , a book of fairy tales translated from German and published in Spagirl Spagirl I'd be wary about Nosey the Dwarf, suggesting he was a prying character.

Nosey was a commen epithet for someone with a large nose, and the fact that the dwarf becomes a cook, suggests that he was blessed with extraordinary olphatory skills. Yes, the King promotes him, but does his nickname refer to his new role as inspector or to the size of his "honker"??

Mari-LouA I think you are reading something i didn't write. In other words, it is possible though by no means certain that because the author makes someone called Nosey an inspector, that others begin to associate the name with the character trait of inquisitiveness.

I grant it is pretty tenuous. I imagined in a frivolous was someone from Disney reading the take after 'Nosey' as showing too much curiosity about other people's affairs became established and reading it as such. I've tried to make the Answer clearer on both points. I wish I could fix spellings in comment, it looked odd when I typed it at the time, so I checked and it is wrong.

Note: This is an answer to the second of the OP's questions. Hendrickson, in The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins , has this entry for Nosey Parker : Matthew Parker, who became archbishop of Canterbury in , acquired a reputation for poking his nose into other people's business.

Shoe Shoe 31k 4 4 gold badges 48 48 silver badges bronze badges. The most frequent origin suggested is the late the very late Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century. He was a reforming cleric, noted for sending out detailed enquiries and instructions relating to the conduct of his diocese. Like many reformers, he was regarded as a busybody.

Before then, anyone said to be nosey was just somebody with a big nose, like the Duke of Wellington, who had the nickname Old Nosey. Some writers have sought the answer in parker as an informal term for a park-keeper, an official in charge of a park, which dates from medieval times.

Eric Partridge suggests an origin in park-keepers at the time of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in Another idea is that nosy Parker was originally nose-poker. Read More. November 08, To top. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:.

Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge. Tools to create your own word lists and quizzes. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans.