Came across this sentence, presented here context-free. What is meant by “chickadees”? I know what’s meant by pastels, Hyannis Port, and yacht-club-coded. Chickadee means nothing to me, except the little bird.
if [this person’s outfit] wasn’t exactly pastels and chickadees, it was very Hyannis Port, yacht-club-coded.
OK, just a little context. This is about an Easter outfit. Maybe they meant to refer to what I’d call chicks or baby chicks, little yellow birds like these. Very famous marshmallow versions are eaten by children from Easter baskets. I’ve just never heard of those yellow birds, made of marshmallow or not, described as chickadees. This is a chickadee, as far as I’m concerned, not a very powerful Easter symbol in itself.
I found this in Urban Dictionary, I’m not sure it makes sense, or if it works in the context you quoted:
A chiefly Canadian term of familiar or affectionate address to a girl or young woman; apparently derived from a Mexican Spanish phrase composed of the word chica(girl) and an adjectival starting with the preposition “de”; the original phrase was forgotten because Spanish is not commonly spoken in Canada, and the spelling was conformed to that of the bird. Only known and used in certain areas.
The other references I can find, regular or slang, just seem to indicate that chickadee means a young girl, and the way it is used or tone of voice can indicate whether it is affectionate or satirical or something else.
It might be helpful to know something about the person who wrote that, like their age and gender, and whether they have a connection to the fashion industry.
The piece was by the fashion director of the NYT, who must know what she’s talking about.
As I was composing my message, I was thinking “chickadee” must refer to some piece of clothing that many people have a name for, but the word happened to mean nothing to me. As if “pastel chickadees” was a specific thing, the common name of an outfit or an ensemble, like dress whites, or ball gown, or pumps and pearls, or clamdiggers. “What are you going to wear to the party?” “Oh, my pastel chickadees, I guess.”
But the more I look at that sentence, the more I think that chickadees means simply the bird. My problem is that the bird doesn’t symbolize Easter, on an outfit or otherwise, and if they’re thinking of the fluffy little yellow bird in an Easter basket or on a baby’s coverall, that’s a chick, not a chickadee.
I’m confused because I’ve often seen young chicks and eggs associated with Easter. Chickadee is an adaption of young chicks. Eggs and the young chicks represent fertility, which is the pagan spring celebration that Easter started out adopting.
From the plot of the movie My Little Chickadee, it appears that it was used by a man to criticize a woman who was young, pretty, but also probably promiscuous:
I have vague memories of the term being used to describe a woman who was young, pretty, and perhaps not very intelligent.
So if we substitute this into the original quote, it might look like this?
if [this person’s outfit] wasn’t exactly pastels, light-hearted and carefree, it was very Hyannis Port, yacht-club-coded.
I would expect that references to Hyannis Port and yacht clubs would indicate sophisticated and wealthy. The “if” at the beginning is confusing, I wouldn’t then expect to read two descriptions that are at such odds with each other. I guess a lot depends on the surrounding context.
I read the entire article (you can find it by searching, but I won’t link out of deference to the OP). It isn’t a whole lot clearer with that context.
I read it as drawing more of a contrast between expected Easter wear versus what she actually wore. But I admit, that’s based more on me knowing the contrast between pastels and Hyannis Port/yacht-club wear, not really on the sentence construction.
I don’t understand. Why did you move the “and” in that sentence? The original quote was “pastels and chickadees”, not “pastel chickadees”. Shouldn’t the new sentence be:
if [this person’s outfit] wasn’t exactly pastels and light-hearted and carefree, it was very Hyannis Port, yacht-club-coded.
Are you kidding? I didn’t “move” the word “and,” I substituted a comma because that is what you do when you have three descriptors in a row. You don’t just keep adding “and” over and over.
I don’t know, maybe your post is performance art or something. If so, it went right over my head.
