Attempted Bloggery: Helen E. Hokinson: The Gypsy Blue-Plate Special

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Helen E. Hokinson: The Gypsy Blue-Plate Special

Does one say special blue plate or blue-plate special? I've never heard anyone say "special blue plate," but the generally scrupulous editors of The New Yorker chose this syntax for the caption of a 1934 cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson, going so far as to alter the original caption presumably written by her collaborator James Reid Parker. The cartoon depicts a matron ordering from a menu in a gypsy restaurant where meals are followed by a fortune telling. Parker's caption is written in pencil on the original art, which was sold on eBay this past August. It reads, "I'll take the gypsy blue plate special and my fortune with the apple pan dowdy." The New Yorker's published caption is, "I'll take the special gipsy blue plate and my fortune with the apple pan dowdy." Today, special blue plate sounds a bit off, but both terms were coined in the 1920s and in use in 1934. Why make the change? A search of the competing terms on the Google Books Ngram Viewer may reveal the answer. It shows the 1930s to be the only time that special blue plate was preferred over blue plate special.

"I'll take the gypsy blue plate special and my fortune with the apple pan dowdy."
Published as "I'll take the special gipsy blue plate and my fortune with the apple pan dowdy."
Original art
The New Yorker, October 6, 1934, page 76

"I'll take the gypsy blue plate special and my fortune with the apple pan dowdy."

Signature of Helen E. Hokinson

The speaker's face is the most carefully reworked part of the drawing:

Helen E. Hokinson
eBay listing ended August 1, 2021

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373654733276?hash=item56ff8ec1dc%3Ag%3ADKsAAOSwSrhg9eTP&nma=true&si=WEtIFz5%252FkfY9UxP8WWeB%252FCaqeVQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Helen E. Hokinson
eBay item description

Helen E. Hokinson
eBay bid history
One bid in the last hour

Cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1934-10-06/flipbook/076/

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=blue+plate+special%2Cspecial+blue+plate&year_start=1900&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3

October 30, 2021 Update: This piece was offered at auction last year by Jonah Fine Art of Holliston, the same town in which the recent eBay seller is located. The estimate was $500 to $700. The lot was passed.