Talk:Wets and dries

Modern usage
"Post-Thatcher, it has commonly been used as a disparaging term for liberal or left-wing ideas."

Has it? I've never heard anyone use this term. As a left-winger who has recently been to a generally right-wing uni, I should have. WikiReaderer (talk) 21:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Citation needed?
Right at the beginning of the article the reader sees this sentence:

"who expressed opposition to her strict monetarist policies designed to tackle inflation and her cuts to public spending.[citation needed]"

Well, the citation comes with the following sentence.

Is it just a mistake? Don't you like the citation? Well, you can read the autobiography of Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, you find citations there an every second page in the first three or four chapters (I have only the German translation, so I can't do it). Is this really a problem?

What is wrong with the users of the English Encyclopedia? A longing for "over-citation"? I can only hope that it is just a mistake. --Wiskeps (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Major
Should John Major be on one of these lists or is he considered a moderate between the two sides? 74.69.11.229 (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It was never clear what his personal philosophy was, and possibly both wings viewed him as 'on our side'. I think that makes him a chameleon, not a moderate.
 * Gravuritas (talk) 11:43, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

willing to compromise.... with whom?
Could someone with access to Safire pls check the reference?- I think we have a US/UK English translation problem here. Wets were seen as willing to compromise with the unions (Labor in US English). Compromise with the Labour party was not really relevant as The Conservatives had a large majority. If I'm right, the recent linkage to the Labour party is incorrect, and the previous reference to Labour should be changed to 'the unions'. Gravuritas (talk) 11:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Terms "dries" needs a better citation
Currently, the reference for the term "dries" being coined by the "wets" is Biffen's obit on the BBC. To me, this only demonstrates that the BBC used the term and isn't really sufficient citation for this term. Is there a better source? --Otus scops (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Michael Howard
Howard was a Dry but he is also a patron of the Tory Reform Group, which is usually considered to be a bastion of the wets. Is he dry or wet? 98.10.165.90 (talk) 01:48, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Pre-Thatcher use of "wet" to mean "weak"
The article says


 * Historically, English public school sports were divided between "wets" - who rowed - and "dries" - who played cricket or rugby. Slang came to describe as "wet" someone judged to be too weak, feeble or "soppy" to play field sports.

That doesn't make sense on its face, since rowing is as athletically demanding as cricket if not more so. And none of the sources cited support it. One of them, in fact suggests the opposite:


 * Wet-bob, subs. (Eton). A rowing man. See DRY-BOB, 1839. C. T. BUCKLAND, Eton Fifty Years Ago [1889, MacmUlan's, Nov.]. It was the ambition of most boys to be a WET-BOB, and to be "in the boats." (Farmer, John Stephen (1900). The Public School Word-book; A Contribution to a Historical Glossary of Words, Phrases and Turns of Expression Obsolete and in Present Use, Peculiar to our Great Public Schools)

Looking in the Oxford English Dictionary and other sources, I don't find any evidence that the Etonian "wet" or "wet-bob," meaning "rower", is related to "wet" in the sense of "weak." The OED's earliest citations for the latter sense are from the early 20th-century:


 * 1916  ‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin ii. 27   I'll give yer a clip 'longside the ear'ole if you ain't careful. Don't act so wet.
 * 1924  P. Marks Plastic Age 94   They attended a performance of Shaw's ‘Candida’ given by the Dramatic Society and voted it a ‘wet’ show.
 * 1924  P. Marks Plastic Age 192   A man is wet if he isn't a ‘regular guy’; he is wet if he isn't ‘smooth’; he is wet if he has intellectual interests..; and he is wet..if he is utterly stupid.
 * 1938  E. Bowen Death of Heart ii. iv. 239   Cecil is so wet! Coming early like that, then sticking round like that.
 * 1944  A. Christie Towards Zero 86   Audrey marry that wet fish? She's a lot too good for that.

Intuitively, it seems likely that "wet" meaning "weak" is connected to "soppy", which the OED defines as


 * 5. Full of mawkish sentiment; foolishly affectionate; inane, indulgent; occasionally used affectionately. Also to be soppy on, to be infatuated with (a person). colloquial.


 * 1918  H. G. Wells Joan & Peter xi. 369   What Joan knew surely to be lovely, Highmorton denounced as ‘soppy’. ‘Soppy’ was a terrible word in boys' schools and girls' schools alike, a flail for all romance.
 * 1920  H. G. Hibbert Playgoer's Mem. xxxi. 257   The music halls were filled up with the precipitated baseness of pantomime—the puns, the ‘unprincipalled’ boy, the soppy-sentimental heroine.

Both may have been Public School slang, but may have also been used broadly across social classes, connected to the idea of sentimental tears. In any case, there's no evidence for a connection to sport. I'm going to remove that claim from the article. 68.9.181.144 (talk) 20:33, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

temperance movement
The phrases 'wet' and 'dry' was not just used in the USA to describe people who were pro-liberty and anti-liberty (alcohol), but also across the anglo-speaking world. Sample newspaper results from Australia and the UK:

"HOBART REGATTA" The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954)  14 January 1919: 5. Web. 15 Feb 2023 < http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12392303 >.

"Women Licensees." Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 5 June 1926, p. 17. British Library Newspapers, link.gale.com/apps/doc/ID3235920872/GDCS?u=slwa&sid=bookmark-GDCS&xid=9d96bdfb. Accessed 14 Feb. 2023.

"Scotland's 'Dry' & 'Wet' Poll" Hull Daily Mail, 23 Nov. 1920, p. 8. British Library Newspapers, link.gale.com/apps/doc/GW3226077712/GDCS?u=slwa&sid=bookmark-GDCS&xid=2d769670. Accessed 14 Feb. 2023.

-- There is also evidence to suggest that this phrase was not then coined by Maggie Thatcher, but rather she just co-opted it from this previous use. -- 203.30.234.37 (talk) 00:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)