Goody Two Shoes
Goody Two Shoes was a phrase known and used not only in 1759 but much earlier too. During an era when people were literally walking around without shoes for most of the year until the really cold weather hit, the soles of their feet were as hearty and hard and tough as a Hobbit's.
When was Goody Two Shoes first published?
"The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes
is a children's story published by John Newbery in London in 1765.
The story popularized the phrase "goody two-shoes",
often used to describe an excessively virtuous person, a do-gooder."
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This publication came two years after the Peace Treaties of the 7 Years War (French and Indian War) during the final stages of what was variously called Pontiac's or Guyasuta's War where the Indians continued fighting without their French allies.
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Apparently the phrase Goody Two Shoes appears more than 100 years earlier.
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Although The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes is credited with popularizing the term "goody two-shoes", the actual origin of the phrase is unknown. For example, it appears a century earlier in Charles Cotton's Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque (1670)
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Mistress mayoress complained that the pottage was cold: 'And all long of your fiddle-faddle,' quoth she. 'Why, then, Goody Two-shoes, what if it be? Hold you, if you can, your tittle-tattle,' quoth he.
Sources:
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That 1765 publication in England is republished in America in 1787.
See the illustration to story in this American version:
The History of Little Goody Twoshoes. Worcester, Massachusetts: Isaiah Thomas, 1787
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See 1766 edition
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1888 edition has a nice color picture on front cover:
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John Adams writes to John Quincy Adams 8 May 1814:
Books are good” and I remember a saying which you used to repeat from your friend Brand Hollis that there is not a bad Book in the World—This is not my opinion—.....—I certainly do not for my own use, prize Jack the Giant–Killer, and Tom Thumb and Goody–Two Shoes, as I did when they constituted the most delicious enjoyment of my life; yet while I have children to whose innocent pleasure they may contribute, I cannot consider them as having lost all their value.—
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Goody in Goody Two Shows has an extra meaning:
This link makes this statement:
The name is used herein to point out the mayoress's comparative privilege; "Goody" (a shortening of "Goodwife"), being the equivalent of "Mrs." and "Two-shoes", implicitly comparing her to people who have no shoes.
Source of quote:
Goodwife (Scots: Guidwife), usually abbreviated Goody, was a polite form of address for women, formerly used where "Mrs.", "Miss" and "Ms." would be used today. Its male counterpart is Goodman. [As in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, Young Goodman Brown] However, a woman addressed by this title was of a lesser social rank than a woman addressed as Mistress.
Source:
Compiled by Jim Moyer first researched 2010, updated 7/30/2023
Various side notes
Interesting side light on Jack the Giant Killer
Repost with Adam and the Ants Video
9/25/2016 in friends of fort loudoun, updated 2/18 but not posted
Sunday Word
Goody Two Shoes
If anything our History is, it isn't Goody Two Shoes.
But this phrase sure lasted.
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And although our History isn't Goody Two Shoes
We still mean to tell all of the story
with an eye
to what you leave out
could be as important as
what you leave in.
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