52°C in London in 1784? No way. This is on a BBC website: First on our list of the hottest places on Earth is Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where a temperature of 52°C (125.6°F) was recorded on 22 June 2010.

Nope. It's a very clear '5', and anyway, Hamilton's '8' is characteristically slanted, halfway towards the modern infinity symbol ∞. See attached image.

Can anyone clarify this diary entry by Mary Hamilton in a period of sweltering late May weather? Even if her barometer had a thermometer built in, 52°F (11°C) is cool, whereas Mrs Delany reports that day that ‘the Weather is so _hot_ that I can not send my usual messenger to you’. #18thC #langsky

Should have thanked Natalia @philistella.bluesky.social (from David Denison, very much a BlueSky newbie!)

Thank you, Natasha Simonova! Not sure they can count as bouts-rimés if the targets aren't rhyme words, which many are not: see pp.116-120 in this ms book (www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/EX-LANC...). And does Mary Hamilton call them 'conglomerations' (p.121), I wonder?

Is there a name for an 18C parlour game in which a participant is given 4 or 5 words and challenged to include them all in an impromptu pair of rhyming couplets? #18thC #langsky

Hamilton reports a horrific lightning strike close to some of the royal children, which (we learn elsewhere) killed a coachman and a footman. So that chestnut of absurd phrasebooks (tracked in Wikipedia) actually happened, if not on a coach journey:
'My postillion has been struck by lightning'!

Mary Hamilton and her networks: Gender, sociability, manuscript. Important (we would think so, wouldn't we?) special issue of JECS, now in copy-editing. Intro + 4 research papers by the team (see www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/further-read...) + 5 outside contributions. #18thC #langsky

We offer both diplomatic and normalised transcriptions. Text in red indicates that the other transcription (in this case the normalised) has abbreviations expanded, spelling modernised, formatting removed, etc. Blue indicates a tooltip. See www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/editorial/

_Notable_ adj. once had meanings to do with household management. Mary Hamilton often applies it to her (needle)work, slightly antedating OED, while Lady Dartrey mentions 'a good notable woman', i.e. competent in household matters. News to me, but not (I bet) to some of you. #18thC #langsky

Chaos? No: word-play. A running joke of my favourite correspondent, Francis Napier, concerns 'the Indigo tint' of Hamilton's allegedly dominating disposition, whereas he himself poses with mock pomposity as a domestic tyrant. See www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/AR-HAM-.... #18thC

More for the OED: bas bleu, indigo (in humorous reference to Bluestocking views), dissertation 'debate', haut ton. Chaperon and dirty (as verbs), moonshine (adjective), a bundle of nerves, jargonic, lucet, parliamenteering, spa toilet, strongle, tarot.

#Linguistics #18thC #c18th

Among 100+ newer/older/unknown words for the OED in the Hamilton Papers are jerry 'hen-pecked husband', jerryism, Benedict 'newly married', hub. Derogatory frump, quiz 'eccentric person'. Playful astoundation, terrificability. Specialised casaquin, clavicello, quipu.

#Linguistics #18thC #c18th

We've been revising www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/personography/ . Thanks to Angela Byrne for correcting our info on 'Mrs Morgan' in HAM/2/1. Further corrections to person identification or details would be most welcome; there's still time to incorporate them in this year's refresh.

Christine, Nuria, Sophie and David have all given Hamilton-related talks (www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/conference-s...) in the last few months, and revision of the edition continues in the background. September will bring some major developments.

Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers has won a York Open Research Award for 2025! (and uoy.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/... gives 3 good reasons why 😀)