The Unfortunates

[Sam Flynn]

Oddly enough, I've read some sources where the word "unfortunates" was used to describe homeless members of the poverty classes in general. Here, for example, is William Booth, writing in 1890:

Much was said concerning the disease-breeding, manhood-destroying character of many of the tenements in which the poor herd in our large cities. But there is a depth below that of the dweller in the slums. It is that of the dweller in the street, who has not even a lair in the slums which he can call his own. The houseless Out-of-Work is in one respect at least like Him of whom it was said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." The existence of these unfortunates was somewhat rudely forced upon the attention of Society in 1887, when Trafalgar Square became the camping ground of the Homeless Outcasts of London.

Wm Booth: "In Darkest England" (my italics)

[halomanuk]

But is that a personal opinion interpreted from the original meaning Sam ?

It doesn't mean it is the original meaning of the word ..

[Mr.Hyde]

By definition,a wide ranging term.
Included the mentally ill.

[Bulldog]

From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:

unfortunate
adj. Unsuccessful; not prosperous; unlucky; attended with or resulting in misfortune.

noun An unfortunate person, specifically a prostitute. (Irish) an insane person.


Bulldog

[Sam Flynn]

But is that a personal opinion interpreted from the original meaning Sam ?

If you mean Booth's personal opinion (as opposed to mine) then, yes, that's possible.

It doesn't mean it is the original meaning of the word ..

The original meaning of the word would have been "an unfortunate person". It may have become co-opted to mean "prostitute", as Bulldog's - modern? - dictionary definition points out, but precisely when that happened is difficult to gauge. Suffice to say the definition was short-lived, for if one sees the word "unfortunate" today, outside the narrow confines of Ripper-speak perhaps, it's invariably the "poor sod" definition that springs to mind.

[caz]

Hi Sam, All,

I just looked it up in one of my personal bibles - the latest Chambers - which gives the following:

unfortunate adj unlucky; regrettable; of ill omen; (esp formerly) living by prostitution. n an unfortunate person.

So I guess context would have been crucial, if merely saying in the LVP: "Nelly is well know to me, she is unfortunate [or an unfortunate]" would have been taken to mean that poor Nell was living by prostitution. If that wasn't the case, I'm sure anyone speaking on a woman's behalf at that time would have qualified it with: "Nelly is well known to me, she has recently been unfortunate enough to lose her job/home/husband [or whatever]".

Love,

Caz
X

[Stewart P Evans]

Unfortunate

From the Victorian Dictionary of Slang -