pearl-clutching

pearl-clutching

1. adjective Scandalized or mortified about some event, situation, thing, etc., that was once salacious but is now relatively common; morally conservative, stuffy, prudish, or unfashionable. Those pearl-clutching old prudes gave me dirty looks as I walked past in my cut-off jeans, but I don't give a hoot what they think about me.
2. noun The practice or habit of reacting in a scandalized or mortified manner to once-salacious but now relatively common things, events, situations, etc. I have to say that I am sick and tired of all the pearl-clutching going on amongst parents. Look, our kids are growing up in a different social environment than when we were in school, and it's high time we learned to deal with that!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • pearl-clutch
  • clutch (one's)/the pearls
  • tell-all
  • in-between
  • bulletproof
  • blue book
  • appropriate for
  • do or die
  • do or die, to
  • want to curl up and die
References in periodicals archive
But, to Panelo, the jolting spectacle of a superpower actively engaged in undermining Philippine interests flooding Manila and other cities with hundreds of thousands of its citizens, ostensibly for businesses that then locate themselves near sensitive Philippine military installations and whose workers 'could be tapped for information-gathering purposes,' as no less than the Philippines' defense chief has warned, is all but silly pearl-clutching: 'Maybe the problem is we are too security-conscious.'
When I say "character", I don't mean it in the pearl-clutching, Mary Whitehouse sense.
Baritone Pierre Rancourt's Matisse was a perfect caricature of the disapproving, pearl-clutching artist--and he looks as good in a red satin bustier as I do, if not better.
To read some of the pearl-clutching outrage over LFC jumping ship for Kirkby, you'd think it was a treasured community resource - it's not.
Last week, there was some pearl-clutching over the BBC's rejigged Politics Live.
There has been pearl-clutching and denial from authorities at the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism ("At this time the point system is more of myth and legend than reality"), and insistence on social media that USY wasn't a monolith (not all kids went there to hook up!), and that the game was an inside joke at worst.
A growing number of cam sites are also enabling bitcoin payments, which (http://www.ibtimes.com/cryptocurrency-increasingly-popular-safer-payment-option-sex-workers-2533733) helps sex workers avoid discrimination from banks and pearl-clutching payment platforms.
As pearl-clutching as these gigantic price cuts are, it's retail fashion tycoon Tommy Hilfiger who wins the brass ring when it comes to preposterously sanguine asking prices that not infrequently lead to elephantine price reductions.
What we could have done without was the industry's pearl-clutching when the eavesdropping was finally revealed: the insistence (with eerily similar wording) that "we have never heard of PRISM"; the Captain Renault-like shock-shock!-to discover that data mining was going on here.
Brands were prepared for the pearl-clutching reaction to Cyrus and Thicke.
Arguments in defence of Justice Dewar's ruling have included character references from his lawyer pals; pearl-clutching over "girls" who dare to dress as they please and dance in public; comparisons of sexual assault to theft and women's bodies to valuable possessions left in plain view; and countless variations on the argument that if she didn't say the word "no," instead indicating non-consent by stating that she feared for her life, she was giving implicit consent.
I can guarantee that most people around the world who want the truth - not some biased agenda seeking soap box, pearl-clutching version - are not watching them either.
At the risk of falling too far into the Zeitgeist, there is not a small whiff of Trumpian effrontery in all of this pearl-clutching. A growing 'how dare you' stance is being directed at any kind of well-measured, critical appraisal of our more established Canadian artists and art institutions--the insidious implication that the press exists solely to prop-up and promote.