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Ask Questions: Postcard Mystery: Pretty Lady Lobsters?

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      CommentAuthorDwigsgirl
    • CommentTimeJan 2nd 2010 edited
     


    I recently acquired this postcard and it amused and confused me.

    The front says: "A Lobster I am and always will be; But won't you have pity and please marry me?" It's a R. Tuck card and part of a series called "Love Tributes".

    Some one has told me that a "Lobster" refers to a pretty lady, which makes sense on this card. The thing that confuses me is why. I've tried to research this on my own with no luck. Can anyone out there please give me an idea why a pretty lady would be called a lobster? Any idea would be greatly appreciated.
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      CommentAuthorRandy
    • CommentTimeJan 2nd 2010
     
    The man is calling himself a lobster, and lobster is slang for "for a gullible, awkward, bungling, or undesirable person."
    See: http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/browse/ZL.HTM

    He's asking the pretty lady to pity him for his awkwardness and undesirability and to marry him anyway! He's not calling the pretty lady a lobster, he's calling himself one.

    I hope this helps!
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      CommentAuthorpostcardy
    • CommentTimeJan 3rd 2010
     
    Here is something I found at Urban Dictionary that makes sense in the context of this postcard:

    A lobster is a New England term for a girl who most likely has a pretty face, nice torso but from the waist down carries an ass the size of a small planet. The ass expands to the circumference of roughly her height (or more). She is called a lobster because like the tasty shellfish "all the meat is in the tail"!
  4.  

    Natural History Series - Fish - "The Lobster"
    Habitat - Large and small cities, towns, villages and hamlets.

    I found the card above that seems to agree with Randy's definition of "Lobster" as "a gullible, awkward, bungling, or undesirable person." The man being the one who is proposing makes sense too.

    Though, I really like Postcardy's definition of "all the meat is in the tail" as well. She is quite shapely, and the woman could be the one proposing if it was a leap year.
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      CommentAuthorJane_PA
    • CommentTimeJan 7th 2010
     
    I love this thread and wish more people would get involved! Right now, I can't get to my postcards so I can't post any.
  6.  


    You can now give a little lobster as a User Gift!
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      CommentAuthorRandy
    • CommentTimeJan 7th 2010 edited
     
    After some further research, there's another definition of "lobster" that seems to fit PostcardCollector's card.

    From a short article by G. Legman entitled Documentation for "Wolf" and "Lobster" that was published in the scholarly journal "American Speech" (Vol. 24 (#2), pages 154-156; April, 1949):

    "A certain slang sense of lobster appears to be obsolete now... (Lobster) refers to a 'sugar-daddy,' a fond and extravagant (and especially a rich, elderly, and red-faced) lover of a designing woman, such as a chorous girl."

    The author then goes on to list published examples of the use of "lobster" that "fit" the obsolete slang definition. I think his best example is from a 1904 publication called "Foolish Dictionary" by Charles W. Towne (a.k.a. G. Wurdz):

    "Lobster - The edible lobster is found off the New England Coast. The two-legged species is found everywhere. All kinds are green, but when roasted turn a bright red. Soubrettes are very dependent on both varieties for a living; together they furnish her with food, raiment, flats, diamonds, and occasionally indigestion."

    Legman also cites a 1906 publication by James M. Flagg entitled "Why They Married." It contains an illustration of a "top-hatted lobster with a cigarette in one claw." This seems to match well with the image posted by PostcardCollector.

    Here's the illustration from Flagg's work:
      Lobster Illustration.jpg
  8.  
    ah, but then, what of this lobster? clearly the lobsterman isn't rich, though his dame might be a chorus girl type!
      figure 6.jpg
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    Ooo a nice Xavier Sager Lobster!

    Condition is a little rough but a great card!
  10.  
    yes, i am poooor and i don't buy cards so much based on quality (i know, shameful!) but based on what interests me. i finished my master's thesis last year on postcards and i'm still obsessed :) i was looking around for lobster postcards when i found this site, and couldn't help but share.

    what i find really interesting is that he's definitely 'red-faced' like a lobster, but the tam o-shanter and the sash obviously place him as a working-class Scot, most likely a lobsterman, of course, and so his "color" and the lobster color work in tandem here to mark him as working class and even sexually animalistic, no? but the woman, she seems to be replicating the lobster in her shape (the crooked elbow, the "tail," the awkward line of her outstretched arm). i dunno. love this card and it continues to fascinate me.
 

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