So you've taken that
special someone to the movies at last! After weeks of hints,
innuendoes and downright overt overtures, your soon-to-be-
beloved has finally agreed to a
date!
Joy of joys! Your preparations for the evening go smoothly, and before you know it, you're both sitting in a darkened
cinema, watching some appropriately
sappy love story.
It's about an hour into the
flick; you feel a great
urge to "make your move". But is the timing right? A humourous yet
romantic scene just occured in the film, and your date, giggling, just glanced at you with warm eyes. Is he/she hinting something? Should you move in for "the
kill?" Is your date thinking the same thing you are (of course they are, silly!)? Around you are dozens more new
couples going through the same
dilemma. Is the time right?
How much easier would it be if at a predetermined point of the movie a little
noise sounded to
signal all amorous couples to commence snuggling? Some audible indication that the time to act is
now. Damn easier, I say!
Well, those
pesky Irish sure knew what they were doing back in the day when it came to
dating. A "
kissing signal" was a short, shrill note played on the strings behind the
bridge of the
fiddle by the lead
fiddler during an Irish
ceili (or
square dance, of sorts) to signify an opportunity for all
lads in the
audience to attempt a quick
peck on their
lasses' collective cheeks. Often the fiddler would also
exclaim "Kiss da lasses!" (or something to that effect), so as to punctuate the occasion. Usually, the ladies wouldn't mind all that much either, having had the initial ice broken in a rather
communal and relatively
innocent manner.
So with the ice broken for all the young couples in the cinema by the "kissing signal", you can now get back to (ahem)... "enjoying" the movie. Cheers!
Sources:
Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1905.
George Stewart's Shetland Fireside Tales, 1892.