I have so many big things going on right now that I’ve been too tired to do anything small and slightly ridiculous. So after reading the first thing Professor Snape ever said to Harry Potter, I rekindled my love of flower and color language and started digitizing early 20^th century floriography dictionaries: floriography.bernardyu.com

I started working on it friday night and have been continually updating it all weekend. I have no real long-term plans but getting something small but tangible and interesting up in less than a day was quite satisfying. I’ll keep working on it, though probably not as single-mindedly as I did this weekend. Eventually I’ll add more books (hand-typing the first one took about 3 hours, but that’ll speed up now that I have the basics set up) so we can compare how the language and usage differs across regions and time. It is fun to see glimpses of how meaning was attributed to certain flowers (such as rupture of contract for broken straw, and union for whole straw). Some are simple and obvious such as majesty for imperial lilies, while others convey deep complex ideas such as “hopeless but not heartless” for Love lies Bleeding. It is a beautiful, fascinating, yet somewhat sexist language (so many definitions judging the purity of women, but nothing on men).

p.s. Privet Drive would translate as Prohibition Drive, as in where Harry wasn’t allowed to do anything.

p.p.s. If you’re wondering what sort of bouquet to prepare for President’s Day, I suggest French willow, black poplar, heliotrope, Cedar of Lebanon, wild plum, Rudbeckia, and red & white roses. Though the heliotrope won’t last long (if you can even find any in February).