"Old maid" - Regional origin of this usage?

[figment]

[Poll #1173206]

Anything else to say about "old maid" as unpopped popcorn kernels? Comment!

Ref:
The OED definition of "old maid"
SlangCity's definition
Urban Dictionary's definition
An archived discussion about this topic

Comments

[pants-of-doom.livejournal.com]

This is a phrase I heard from my mom, who grew up in Maine and Tennessee.

[xcorvis.livejournal.com]

While I have used the phrase, it's probably been like 3 times, ever.

old maid

[gomi-no-sensei.livejournal.com]

I've heard it for a card game (though I don't recall the rules).

Re: old maid

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

The card game usage is more standard. Both are derived from the (somewhat offensive) meaning of "old maid" as "spinster". (In the card game there's something with only one queen, or a queen being left over...)

[whitefox77.livejournal.com]

Come on, you just have to love slang terms that manage to completely out last their original definitions.

Describing something that doesn't fulfill it's purpose as an old never-married woman (or more technically an older woman that is still a virgin) is rather offense I'll agree, and it's why I don't use the term despite the fact that my entire family did.

On the flip side, based on the purpose of communication, it's important to keep in mind the idea of what a person is trying to express, and not focus on the way they express it. Emotional responses on the part of the receiver that cloud the meaning of communication are at least as much the responsibility of the receiver to deal with as they are the responsibility of the sender of the communication.

It's amazing how much less insulting the world as a whole is if you focus on what people mean, not what they say.

[malcubed.livejournal.com]

I really only use it in the sense that I don't actively avoid using it.

Which is to say, it doesn't really come up a lot as even when I'm eating popcorn I don't really feel a need to refer to unpopped kernels by their own term. But if such a need arose, I would probably use that phrase.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

I am a great big geek. I learned this meaning of the phrase from the popcorn episode of Good Eats. Alton was giving a history of popcorn poppers and said that one of the original kinds led to "a lot of old maids." And all of a sudden, a little old lady appeared and whapped him over the head with her handbag.

[(Anonymous)]

Beth, Brian from Mac.

For years I had heard the phrase Old Maid in the context of the card game or an old, and now, "unmarriable" woman. And yes, I think it's an offensive view.

It wasn't until much more recently that I heard it in regards to popcorn. I personally would call them duds or the like.

At my job we have various training materials in regards to design of experiments. One example involves popcorn, and we refer to the unpopped kernels as bullets.

Brian