Notes and Queries - Literary and Historical Questions Seeking Short Answers

[Cadence]

Notes and Queries was a journal where (for a long time) you could send in a question and folks would crank out answers about literature and history .

Now we don't need that quite as much with google... but sometimes doing the google doesn't pull up an answer.

So, trying it here. If you have a literary or historical question that you can't find the answer for, plop it in somewhere in all caps. When it looks like it's answered, go back and put and update in your original post with the answer (again in all caps).

This format might be a train wreck, but who can tell.

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Update: Question 1 Looks like it's answered - "chief god of Pop" is likely the head prefect at Eton.

I'm reading a Ngaio Marsh book from 1935 - NZ writer, detective story set near London about that time - and I have no idea what the phrase below is, and Google failed me. Thanks for any help!

The scene is a coroner's inquest, and the friend is an inspector from Scotland Yard testifying.

"Nigel watched his friend, and experienced something of the sensation that visited him as a small boy, when the chief god of Pop walked on to a dais and grasped the hand of Royalty. Alleyn described the revolver, and the cartridges—.455."

 

[Davies]

My guess would be that it was a reference to an episode where some sort of entertainer, or possibly a soda manufacturer, met and was congratulated by a member of the royal family, but I am not even close to certain, and I do not know where or when that might have happened. Wikipedia confirms that the term "pop song" was first used in 1926, and that pop as a reference to soda is older by a bit.

 

[Zardnaar]

Pops an older term for soda.

We usually call soda fizz or fizzy.

 

[Cadence]

My guess would be that it was a reference to an episode where some sort of entertainer, or possibly a soda manufacturer, met and was congratulated by a member of the royal family, but I am not even close to certain, and I do not know where or when that might have happened. Wikipedia confirms that the term "pop song" was first used in 1926, and that pop as a reference to soda is older by a bit.

Pops an older term for soda.

We usually call soda fizz or fizzy.

It seemed strange to me that that word was the capitalized.

I will follow up the soda lead I guess. (Pop is what we called it where I grew up in the Midwest, too).

 

[Zardnaar]

It seemed strange to me that that word was the capitalized.

I will follow up the soda lead I guess. (Pop is what we called it where I grew up in the Midwest, too).

I could be completely wrong as well and words have dhanged.

Also if the author was an adult the book might date from 1935 the author might date from the 19th century.

Not much before 1935 alot of people still identify as British or Irish or citizen if the empire so it can be huh reading old literature here. Could also be a regionalism thing as well. That's mostly gone now except faint remnants in a couple of places.

For music this apparently was popular in 1935.

Now is the hour, NZ's first million-selling song? | NZHistory, New Zealand history online

Hear 'Now is the hour' sung by the St Joseph's Maori College Girls Choir.

nzhistory.govt.nz

 

[Dioltach]

I don't know whether you're reading a hardcopy or a digital copy, but with digital - even a high-quality ePub - there's always the possibility that it's an OCR error.

 

[seftomaniac]

Nigel ( in about 1935) remembers something that happened to him as a SMALL BOY so the date we are talking about is probably 1920 ish! .. and im sure the Beatles arent THAT OLD!!!!!! fizz it must be....

 

[seftomaniac]

Whats the book title... is it Enter A Murder or Nursing Home Murder..( one of those?)

 

[Morrus]

I’ve never heard the phrase before.

 

[Dioltach]

Apparently "Pop" is also the informal name of the "Eton Society". Depending on how posh the characters are, it might be a reference to that?