The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/jan/29/smoking-railway-carriages-nineteenth-century informs me that in 1872 a conference decided that they should not be given “out-relief” (charitable assistance of some kind).
But what are they ? We all know what an able-bodied man is, but the single-bodied woman phrase is new to me, and the only page google finds is the one linked above.
Any insights ?
I think that they mean an unmarried woman.
No definitive answer, but here’s my insight, based on the context: one who has no children to support, and no husband.
Perhaps, in 1872, folks could think about single-minded men, but they couldn’t imagine women having minds.
The suggestions that it means an unattached/single woman make sense :- from a subsequent Google, “out-relief” is relief outside a workhouse, a basis subsistence package of food and necessities that allows you to survive without entering a workhouse (which were largely hellholes).
In that context, the above meaning of single-bodied seems reasonable :- if you’re an unattached woman with no dependents who falls on hard times, it’s straight off to to the workhouse with you, or you starve.
Very different times.
Thanks for the input, people.
I have a suggestion for what may have happened here. Is it possible for you to look at the original newspaper itself? Is it on microfiche or something at a library near you? I wonder if it’s simply a mistake that was created when the newspaper archive was put into Internet-accessible form. The term “single-bodied” isn’t given in the OED. Hey, samclem, is this term found anywhere else that you can search in your vast resources? My theory is that in the original newspaper the term being used was “single able-bodied” and that someone who typed this into the digital database made a mistake and combined the two words into “single-bodied.”
I don’t have ready access to the original newspaper, but presumably the Guardian themselves do.
I’ll email their Reader’s Ombudsman and ask if it’s possible a mistake was made :- as a paper of record, errors in transcribing their archives could presumably be embarrasing.
I can’t find any hits for that in any US papers to which I have access.
I agree with the other posters that it was the (writer’s?) intent to describe a single woman who was able to work, but wasn’t working for whatever reason.
Google finds lots of hits for “single-bodied”, but they mostly refer to objects – presumably those with a single body. The newspaper letter cited is the only hit that Google gives for “single-bodied woman”, and it may be a word made up by the author, influenced by the term “able-bodied” used earlier in the sentence. So we really only have that context to infer the meaning of the word, and I agree that it probably refers to a single woman with no dependents.
I should have made it specific that I wanted citations where the term is used in this particular definition. I understand that “single-bodied” could be used to describe an object with a single body. I still suspect that this is not a matter of someone making up a term in their letter. I suspect that it’s a matter of a typist making an error when transcribing the letter.
I don’t know if this is the conference, but the minutes of a 1872 conference on administration of the poor law is here:
It includes the section (typos in the transcription corrected by me best I can)
I agree the that the transcription error is a likely explanation. But to clarify, I don’t think this was originally a letter to the editor.
That archive reprint section is usually from the paper itself - today’s clearly is, for example :-
I think the archive section from yesterday, where the puzzling phrase appeared, is a combination of a letter to the editor and a snippet from the paper, reporting about the conference on poverty.
If that is the case, and it wasn’t a transcription error, then the phrase was originally written by a professional journalist.
But as I say, I do find the transcription error explanation plausible. The Guardian haven’t got back to me :- I’ll report back as and if they do.
And I should have checked my email before the previous reply :- the Guardian have replied.
They’ve investigated, and it’s NOT a transcription error :- the phrase appears in the original paper. And they don’t know what it means. Very curious.
So it’s probably a shortening of “single, able-bodied woman”
It’s possible that it’s a transcription error of a different type. It’s possible that the journalist who wrote the article (or the person who wrote the letter) accidentally wrote “single-bodied” when they meant “single able-bodied.” It’s also possible that the typesetter put “single-bodied” into type when what he read in the article or letter he was typesetting was “single able-bodied.” This still strikes me as more likely than someone making up the word “single-bodied” with the meaning “single able-bodied.”
Yes, thinking about it I’m inclined to agree it was an original, 1872 mistake.
If it was an actual phrase that had fallen into desuetude, Google would likely have some trace of it. And inventing phrases has never been a habit of professional journalists, at least not of straight news reporters.
Thanks for the input, people.