T-Rex: Once upon a time, by which I mean around 636 AD, there lived a woman Æthelthryth who took a vow of perpetual virginity, because why not? It's the 600s! Virginity was in, vows were in, IT MADE SENSE.
T-Rex: Then later on she died anyway, because death WILL inevitably claim us all!!
T-Rex: Anyway! Years later they dug up her body (because, again, it was history times and nobody had invented Nintendos yet) and discovered that her body hadn't really decomposed that much! This can happen for a variety of reasons BUT SCIENCE WASN'T REALLY A THING YET, so she ended up a Catholic Saint, and since nobody knew what to do with a name like "Æthelthryth", they called her "Saint Audrey".
Utahraptor: But what does this have to do with MY modern work-a-day world??
T-Rex: I'm glad you asked!
T-Rex: Her admirers held an annual fair where they sold each other lace: "St. Audrey's lace". This became corrupted to "tawdry lace" - and when that style of lace fell out of fashion, "tawdry" kinda seemed like an adjective that meant "cheap" or "sucky", so that's what it became!
Utahraptor: Amazing!
T-Rex: Yep! And that's how a woman who died over a thousand years ago without ever even boning anyone is memorialized every day by an insulting adjective.
T-Rex: The moral? HISTORY IS WEIRD,
T-Rex: ENGLISH IS WEIRDER
