Talk:babes in the wood

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babes in the wood

Defined as "(obsolete, slang) Criminals in the stocks, or pillory." -- WikiPedant 05:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

google books:"babe|babes in the wood" pillory works (though one needs to weed out the mentions).—msh210℠ 16:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know much about early-nineteenth-century English humor, but http://books.google.com/books?id=FvoVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA128&dq=babes-in-the-wood makes me think this was just a joke. —Ruakh_TALK 00:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Even the mentions seem to be divided on whether or not the phrase was used. Consider:

• 1802, Maria Edgeworth, Essay on Irish Bulls:

  Even the slang of English pickpockets and coiners is, as we may see in Colquhoun's View of the Metropolis, free from all seducing mixture of wit and humour. What Englishman would ever have thought of calling persons in the pillory the babes in the wood? This is a common cant phrase amongst Dublin reprobates.

— Beobach 18:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

RFV-failed. Deleted. — Beobach 22:14, 2 December 2010 (UTC)