We were talking about Christmas decorations and I mentioned that quite a few years ago, Claire always put tinsel on our Christmas tree. You pretty much don’t see tinsel at all these days, and if you do, it certainly doesn’t look like it did years ago.
Tinsel is a funny word — according to the Oxford dictionary, the word comes from the old French word estincele, meaning “sparkle.
It’s defined as:
• a form of decoration consisting of thin strips of shiny metal foil
• showy or superficial attractiveness or glamour
The tinsel that Claire used was shiny metal “strips” and she hung them on the tree and they reflected the tree lights and made them seem to flicker. I did some checking and modern tinsel was invented in Nuremberg around 1610 and was originally made from extruded strands of silver. But because silver tarnishes quickly, it was soon made of other shiny metals.
Tinsel was very popular during the 1950s and 60s, and probably even into the 70s. Most tinsel back then was made of lead foil. Unlike silver, lead tinsel didn’t tarnish. But lead tinsel was phased out due to concern that exposure created a risk of lead poisoning. Tinsel is now typically made from polyvinyl chloride (PVD) film coated with a metallic finish. The problem with the new material is that the tinsel doesn’t hang as well as tinsel made from heavy metals — I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Claire stopped putting it on our trees.
And while on the subject of tinsel, I’ve always heard Hollywood referred to as “Tinseltown” — what’s that all about? Hollywood is, or at least was, the capital of the American film industry. The fact that Tinseltown became a popular slang term for it isn’t particularly surprising. Tinsel is a shiny material used for Christmas decorations — it’s a little gaudy, but has no real substance. Hollywood, rightly or wrongly, has gotten the reputation of being a place that is beautiful on the surface, but underneath, is a harsh and ugly place.
So Tinseltown has come to mean a place that’s like tinsel — shiny and bright on the surface, but fragile and not made of solid material.
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