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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006BrE: registry office
Hello: In the UK, was/is a registry office (at least some of them) an employment office? Also, is "come over" possible instead of "come round" in the BrE? ----- "Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." E. M. Foster, Howard's End, p. 72 ------ Thanks. Marius Hancu >Hello: > >In the UK, was/is a registry office (at least some of them) an >employment office? <snip 2nd question> >----- >"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." > >E. M. Foster, Howard's End, p. 72 >------ The most familiar meaning of "registry office" is: http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/orexxgisteroffice?view=uk register office * noun (in the UK) a local government building where civil marriages are conducted and births, marriages, and deaths are recorded. - USAGE The official term is register office, although the ---> form registry office is commonly used in unofficial and informal contexts. It is difficult to tell from the sentences you quoted whether this is the type of registry office that is being talked about. Can you give more context? Does the story say what happened at the registry office following the request in the quote?  SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > >----- > >"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Does the story say what happened at the registry office following > the request in the quote? Not much, only this: -------- The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string of carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn, and finally had to be content with an insidious "temporary," being rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. ------- Marius Hancu Marius Hancu <Marius.Hancu@gmail.com> had it: > > >----- > > >"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. > ------- As Peter says, the current "registry office" refers to the "Register Office" where one registers births and deaths and where one can be married in a civil ceremony. But this looks more like an employment agent who is finding employers for household staff. I've never heard it used in that way though. SignatureDavid ===== the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com> had it: > Marius Hancu <Marius.Hancu@gmail.com> had it: > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > But this looks more like an employment agent who is finding employers > for household staff. I've never heard it used in that way though. Ah, yes, it seems that there used to be a type of business called a "Servants' Registry Office" which is where one could go to engage a new servant. E.g: http://tinyurl.com/yyrqm3 http://www.umilta.net/rose2.html The servants in the story are turning down the prospective employer because of her many stairs. SignatureDavid ===== > the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com> had it: > [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > The servants in the story are turning down the prospective employer > because of her many stairs. OED defines it as " ?a place where a register of positions in domestic employment is kept" with cites going back to Swift. Forster is one of them. SignatureJohn Dean Oxford > > > Not much, only this: > > > -------- [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > http://tinyurl.com/yyrqm3 > http://www.umilta.net/rose2.html Thank you all. Marius Hancu >> >----- >> >"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. >------- I Googled for: domestic servants registry site:uk and found a number of hits. For example: http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/downloads/TheVictoriansWorkingChildren.pdf Domestic Services. Working in somebody Else's house was a far more common place of work for girls than mines or factories. Smaller (lower middle class) households employed perhaps one or two girls- 'maids of all work'. Most of the maids were young; they could begin at 13 or sometimes younger, and stayed until they got married. There was a Registry Office to recruit domestic servants in Stafford Road, Oakengates, run by Mrs Dudley; and Mrs Espley ran a Service Agency in Wrekin Road, Wellington, also in the early 20 th Century. At Dale End in Coalbrookdale three generations of the Patten-Smith family ran a domestic service registry for nearly 100 years (1837-1936). This Mid Shropshire Registry for Domestic Servants even placed a girl (Nellie Oakes from Coalbrookdale) in Royal service at Windsor Castle sometime in the 1920s SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) [...] > I Googled for: domestic servants registry site:uk > and found a number of hits. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Domestic Services. [...] > There was a Registry Office to recruit domestic servants in > Stafford Road, Oakengates, run by Mrs Dudley; and Mrs Espley ran [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Coalbrookdale) in Royal service at Windsor Castle sometime in > the 1920s "Register Office" or "Registry Office" for an employment exchange was also not unknown in Aus: for example, there's a song called _The Cocky from Bungaree_ in which one such gets the narrator a most unsatisfactory farm-labouring job. The back of my mind seems to be telling me that seaports (you know, Bucky, towns like Chicago and Manchester) had places of one of those names for merchant seamen, too. SignatureMike. > [...] >> I Googled for: domestic servants registry site:uk [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > telling me that seaports (you know, Bucky, towns like Chicago and > Manchester) had places of one of those names for merchant seamen, too. Yep. OED cites various usages including: 1760 Foote Minor i. Wks. 1799 I. 247, I have advertis'd this morning, in the register-office, for servants under seventeen. 1779 Sheridan Critic i. i, My drawing-room is an absolute register-office for candidate actors, and poets without character. 1835 Act 5 & 6 Will. IV, c. 19 §19 There shall be established in the Port of London an office to be called 'The General Register Office of Merchant Seamen'. Seems to be a term that has travelled with the founders of Empire. SignatureJohn Dean Oxford >Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >E. M. Foster, Howard's End, p. 72 >------ Just to pick up your second query (others have dealt with the first): "come over" doesn't feel right for the period, and doesn't convey quite the same sense as "come round". It's hard to pinpoint the distinction; it's possibly the suggestion of going to somewhere perceived as "round the corner" or within the neighbourhood* or reasonably close by, or possibly somewhere to which one goes on a fairly regular basis. "Come over" might be used for places further away. *This is a British sense of "neighbourhood" which means "the area which contains the closest [registry office] to the exclusive part of town in which I live". SignatureKaty Jennison spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ > Just to pick up your second query (others have dealt with the first): > "come over" doesn't feel right for the period, and doesn't convey > quite the same sense as "come round". Important to know. >It's hard to pinpoint the > distinction; it's possibly the suggestion of going to somewhere > perceived as "round the corner" That was my feeling. Thank you very much. Marius Hancu >>Hello: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > fairly regular basis. "Come over" might be used for places further > away. I'd go the opposite way. I would take "Come over to the registry office" to mean that the office was just across the street as opposed to round the corner. SignatureRob Bannister > >>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a > >>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." > > Just to pick up your second query (others have dealt with the first): > > "come over" doesn't feel right for the period, and doesn't convey [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > to mean that the office was just across the street as opposed to round > the corner. We had better get to the bottom of this, or we'll all be lost on the way to the office:-) Marius Hancu >> >>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >> >>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >We had better get to the bottom of this, or we'll all be lost on the >way to the office:-) It's an interesting exercise to reconstruct how one speaks... I'm with Katy on this. To go 'over' to somewhere implies crossing some imaginary distance-marker, which might be just a field, or half a county. From here in southern England I wouldn't go over to anywhere more than about twenty miles away, unless it were France, but that's over the Channel and a different mental image. But I could easily go round to see my next-door neighbour. SignaturePaul In bocca al Lupo! > >> >>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a > >> >>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > But I could easily go round to see my next-door neighbour. I think you, Katy, and Rob are right about "over", except that I fancy your field or half-county, like Rob's street, are not so much distance-markers as obstacle- or effort-markers. I imagine I'd go over to see a neighbour on the other side of the road, however near, but round to see one on the same side, even if several houses along. Perhaps what we also do is assess whether the destination is in some notional way in front of us ("over"), or in some equally notional way beside or behind us ("round"). I'd certainly go over to Kent from Glos, and that's a considerable distance; but I think that's not a "round/over" choice, but the imaginary-map question, with its variable ups, downs, and acrosses. SignatureMike. >>>>>>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >>>>>>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > "round/over" choice, but the imaginary-map question, with its variable > ups, downs, and acrosses. I don't know whether you are right or not, but this sounds very plausible. I like it. SignatureRob Bannister >> >>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >> >>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >We had better get to the bottom of this, or we'll all be lost on the >way to the office:-) All right, I agree that's another possible meaning of "come over", but even if it had been a common phrase, and meant that, in Forster's day, I don't think he'd have used it, because the idea of an employment registry office being directly opposite, or even in the same street as, the house of the lady in question would have been inconceivable. In present-day uage, if I were issuing invitations, I'd say "come over", in your sense, only to someone who lived directly opposite me. I'd say "come round" to someone living in the next street, or on the same side of the same street. And I'd say "come over" to someone fifty miles away. SignatureKaty Jennison spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ > In present-day uage, if I were issuing invitations, I'd say "come > over", in your sense, only to someone who lived directly opposite me. > I'd say "come round" to someone living in the next street, or on the > same side of the same street. And I'd say "come over" to someone > fifty miles away. OK, with this, the map is pretty clear now in my mind:-) Thanks. Marius Hancu >> In present-day uage, if I were issuing invitations, I'd say "come >> over", in your sense, only to someone who lived directly opposite me. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >OK, with this, the map is pretty clear now in my mind:-) If I owned a house on the beachfront, I would say "come over" to someone who lived further inland, even just one street further inland. -- John Savage (Australia) (my news address is not valid for email) >>>>"Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >>>>housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > We had better get to the bottom of this, or we'll all be lost on the > way to the office:-) Let's go down to the office. SignatureRob Bannister >>>>> "Would you come round with me to the registry office? There's a >>>>> housemaid who won't say yes but won't say no." [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Let's go down to the office. Come on-a my house my house, I'm gonna give you candy Come on-a my house, my house, I'm gonna give a you Apple a plum and apricot-a too eh Come on-a my house, my house a come on Come on-a my house, my house a come on Come on-a my house, my house I'm gonna give a you Figs and dates and grapes and cakes eh SignatureJohn Dean Oxford [...] > >> We had better get to the bottom of this, or we'll all be lost on the > >> way to the office:-) [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Come on-a my house, my house I'm gonna give a you > Figs and dates and grapes and cakes eh Let me take you down, 'Cos I'm going to her place near the river. You can hear the boats go by -- Penny Lane for ever! SignatureMike. |
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