It often amazes me when I find out people don't know things. I mean like things that I would just think everyone knows. A while back on my facebook I had posted something about doing a curtsy. I couldn't remember how to spell curtsy and i asked someone at work and they said, "What's that?"
Are you serious? You really don't know what a curtsy is?
And they were serious.
And they didn't know what a curtsy was.
I explained and showed them what a curtsy was and they all immediately knew what I was talking about. They just didn't know it was called that. So anyway that of course got me to thinking about curtsies and the history behind it. Indulge me. I have lots of odd questions floating around in my head that result in me over-using google. It's what I do.
So a curtsy (also spelled curtsey or courtesy) is, according to Wikipedia, a curtsy is a traditional gesture of greeting, in which a girl or woman bends her knees while bowing her head. It is the female equivalent of male bowing in Western cultures. Miss Manners characterizes its knee bend as deriving from a "traditional gesture of an inferior to a superior." The word "curtsy" is a phonological change from "courtesy" known in linguistics as syncope.
In phonology, syncope (pronounced /ˈsɪŋkəpiː/, Greek syn- + koptein “to strike, cut off”) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word; especially, the loss of an unstressed vowel. See, while I learn about the curtsy I also learn about other things that are kind of cool but I probably won't remember anything about it.
In European cultures it is traditional for women to curtsy in front of royalty and while I didn't watch the wedding on tv it made me wonder if anyone curtsied there. I'm sure you've seen female dancers often curtsey at the end of a performance to show gratitude or acknowledge any applause from the audience. At the end of a ballet class, students will also curtsey or bow to the teacher and the pianist to show gratitude.
Now considering I'm from Texas when I read about this I found it amusing. The "Texas Dip" is an extreme curtsey performed by a Texan debutante when formally introduced at the debutante ball. The young woman slowly lowers her forehead to the floor by crossing her ankles, then bending her knees and sinking. The escort's hand is held during the dip. When the debutante's head nears the floor, she turns her head sideways, averting the risk of soiling her dress with lipstick. Soiling her dress? Who uses the word soiling?
Really, who uses the word soiled?
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