Talk:Piccadilly

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Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 2, 2015	Good article nominee	Listed
May 17, 2017	Good topic candidate	Promoted

Current status: Good article

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Source[edit]

My source for the origin of the name is Do not pass go, ISBN 0-224-06263-8 -- Tarquin 13:17, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I just had a quick look around. It appears to be almost correct.

from www.dictionary.com

\Pic"ca*dil\, Piccadilly \Pic`ca*dil"ly\, n. [OF. piccagilles the several divisions of pieces fastened together about the brim of the collar of a doublet, a dim. fr. Sp. picado, p. p. of picar to prick. See Pike.] A high, stiff collar for the neck; also, a hem or band about the skirt of a garment, -- worn by men in the 17th century.

From http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-pic1.htm

An applied shape on the edge of clothing, especially a collar.

A tailor named Robert Baker, who had a shop in the Strand in London around the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. He generated a large fortune from making and selling picadils, much of which he spent buying up a large tract of what was then open country to the west of London. Around 1612 he built a country house there. This was nicknamed Piccadilly Hall, either from the source of the tailor’s wealth, or because it was at the edge of his property, as the picadils were at the edge of items of clothing.

See: http://www.gipsypeddler.com/rapier1.htm for PICADIL JERKIN

See: http://members.aol.com/peldyn/picadil.html for examples of picadils

See: http://www.krysstal.com/piccline.html for Piccadilly Hall.

See: http://www.8savilerow.com/hist_sr.html

No mention of it being a metal support though.

Mintguy 15:12, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Pick-a-Dilly[edit]

The "call girl" story seems to be a hoax, unless you can dig out a source for it; I have never heard the word "Dilly" as a synonym for prostitute, and this area was never well known for prostitution, having gone straight from open fields to large houses — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this statement:

There is a myth that in the 17th century, call girls were called 'Dilly's. Piccadilly is rumoured to be named after 'picking a dilly' in the area, however the tailor story has stuck in historic terms.

... as I consider it to be non-encyclopedic and implausible. There were no "call girls" in the 17. c, etc. No offence. Maikel (talk) 19:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another folk etymology I just invented: it is derived from "peccadillo", meaning "little sin". You fill in the blanks. ;) Maikel (talk) 19:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Piccadilly Circus, on the other hand... Until the internet, mobile phones and places to advertise came along, the 'Dilly' was a significant place on the male prostitute scene. Lovingboth (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Second most important[edit]

OK, what's supposed to be the most important westerly connection? Lovingboth (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, looking, the A4 article says, with no citation or reason, that the A40 route is more important. But the road to Fishguard being more important than the one to Bristol? The A40 article doesn't claim to be the most important... Lovingboth (talk) 18:52, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Westway certainly has greater capacity than Piccadilly. I'll try to clarify this in the article. Modest Genius ^talk 22:51, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of Piccadilly[edit]

The picture of roadworks in Piccadilly taken in 2011 is hardly representative of the street, is it? Surely we can find a copyright-free photograph or picture somewhere and delete this one? --Stelmaris (talk) 11:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree but I think I've looked for a better one and couldn't find one. Please go ahead and look yourself on Wikimedia Commons! --TBM10 (talk) 19:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fiction[edit]

Raffles, E. W. Hornung's "gentleman thief" lives at Albany as does Jack Worthing from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Many P.G. Wodehouse novels use the setting of Piccadilly as the playground of the rich, idle bachelor in the inter-war period of the 20th century. Notable instances of this are present in the characters of Bertie Wooster and his Drones Club companions in the Jeeves stories and the character of James Crocker in the story Piccadilly Jim.

In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Count Dracula owns a house on Piccadilly.

In Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited, the family mansion, Marchmain House, which is supposedly located in a cul-de-sac off St James's, near Piccadilly, is demolished and replaced with luxury flats; although an incident in fiction, this is, in fact, representative of the period. In Granada TV's dramatization of the novel, Bridgewater House in Cleveland Row, which like its prototype backs on to Green Park, was used as the exterior of Marchmain House.

In Arthur Machen's 1894 novella The Great God Pan, Helen Vaughan, the satanic villainess and offspring of Pan, lives off Piccadilly in the pseudonymous Ashley Street.

Margery Allingham's fictional detective, Albert Campion, has a flat at 17A Bottle Street, Piccadilly, over a police station. However, Bottle Street is a made-up name.

In the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter's address in London is 110A Piccadilly. The number 110A was chosen in homage to Arthur Conan Doyle's use of 221B Baker Street for Sherlock Holmes.

In the 1881 comic opera Patience, the popular poetaster and fraud Bunthorne's means of publicising himself is to "walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in his medieval hand."

In the Virginia Woolf short story The Legacy, the main character's (Gilbert Clandon) wife kills herself by stepping into traffic on Piccadilly.

In Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady, Ralph Touchett establishes Isabel Archer and Miss Henrietta Stackpole "at a quiet inn in a street that ran at right angles to Piccadilly" during their visit to London.

A British film made in 1929 was called Piccadilly.

The British band Squeeze refers to the area in the song "Piccadilly" on their album East Side Story with the lyrics, "She meets me in piccadilly / A begging folk singer stands tall by the entrance / His song relays worlds of most good intentions / A fiver a ten p in his hat for collection."

The American band OneRepublic references Piccadilly in their song "Good Life" with the lyrics, "Woke up in London yesterday / Found myself in the city near Piccadilly."

Century / centuries[edit]

What's the consensus for these, where a history section spans multiple centuries? I thought the singular was more correct. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:52, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. If we were saying 18th and 19th centuries it would apply, but we're saying 18th to 19th century. Tim riley is usually good at this sort of thing, thoughts?♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:00, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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