As part of the upcoming “media blitz” for Powwows and Fester, I decided that it was time to update the logo. I trimmed the original image down to the face, and added an endless knot style border. As I was staring – for hours – at that sweet weasel face, it occurred to me that I had never told the story of how the name Sweet Weasel Words came about. So I will now.
First, the sweet face is not a weasel, but a ferret. Pet ferrets were a status symbol in 17th and 18th century Britain. Queen Elizabeth I had a pet ferret named Rascal and included him in one of her royal portraits.
Nearly a century later, Queen Anne did Elizabeth one better by having portraits painted of her own pet ferrets, and insisting that they hang in the National Portrait Gallery. The paintings are remarkable for their time due to the use of a special green pigment in the paint, which could only be made from guano from one of the Galapagos Islands (the small one). The paintings themselves are rather small (~1 1/2″ x 2 1/2″), so I guess not a lot of special guano was required.
Queen Anne’s ferrets were named Chauncy and Impertinence. Chauncy has a sorta “huh?” look about him in his painting.
Impertinence looks exactly like her name in her portrait.
Queen Anne doted on Chauncy and Impertinence, and called them her “sweet weasels.” She insisted on the pictures being hung in the British National Portrait Gallery. There was a fuss about it at first, with many feeling it was inappropriate. The curators of the gallery waited until they figured that Queen Anne wasn’t looking, and then they moved the ferret pictures into the corner by the trash can.
I’ve always thought that the picture of Impertinence was very fetching, and I’ve always enjoyed the phrase “weasel words.” When it came time to put a name to my enterprise, the two random memories just sort of flew together and combined, making a wet slap sound. Thus the name Sweet Weasel Words was born.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
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