Usage Among British Royal Family
The use of the left-hand pinky finger as the wedding ring and royal signet or initial ring of the British Royal Family is shrouded in family secrecy. Nevertheless, it is an ironclad tradition dating back to the sons of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria's son Prince Leopold wore many rings on his left pinky, as did all of the sons of King George V. King Edward VII did not assign any special significance to his left pinky as later generations did, and his son George V wore no rings at all. The best example of such a ring was the one worn by George VI. Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh wore his father's signet ring until sometime in the 1970s when he ceased to wear any signet. Prince Charles wears the official signet of the Prince of Wales, which ring is nearly 175 years old and was last worn by the Duke of Windsor when he was still Prince of Wales. Prince Charles as well as the other men in the family wear their signets on top of their wedding bands.
Read more about this topic: Pinky Ring
Famous quotes containing the words british royal family, royal family, usage, british, royal and/or family:
“We may be scum, but at least we’re la crème de la scum.”
—Report on the British royal family. quoted in Sunday Times (London, Nov. 13, 1988)
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“If the British prose style is Churchillian, America is the tobacco auctioneer, the barker; Runyon, Lardner, W.W., the traveling salesman who can sell the world the Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you and convince you that tomatoes grow at the South Pole.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island.”
—William Blackstone (1723–1780)
“The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)