XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: kehoea@parhasard.net   
      
    Ar an séú lá is fiche de mí Lúnasa, scríobh Steve Hayes:   
      
    > Another example of something we have discussed here before, This from   
    > the "Carlisle Patriot", 09 Jul 1825   
    >   
    > On 25 Aug 2025 at 16:46, petra.mitchinson--- via list-cumbria wrote:   
    >   
    > > The last case, was on Monday evening, when he inveigled an interesting   
    > > little creature under the dry arch of Eden-Bridge.   
    >   
    > A language question: what does "interesting" mean in this context?   
    >   
    > It seems to have been quite common for 19th-century newspapers to speak of   
    > "interesting children" or "an interesting child", but I wonder what it   
    > meant?   
      
   Likely 5.) in my OED2 entry for “interest, v”:   
      
     5. To affect with a feeling of concern; to stimulate to sympathetic feeling;   
   to excite the curiosity or attention of. (Prob. a back-formation from   
   interested ppl. a. 3.)   
     [1748 Anson’s Voy. iii. vi. 348 They did not appear to be at all   
   interested about us.]   
     1780 Bentham Princ. Legisl. xviii. §57 By what other means should an object   
   engage or fix a man’s attention, unless by interesting him?   
     1791 Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest ix, She had been too much interested by the   
   events of the moment.   
     1830 Galt Lawrie T. iv. viii. (1849) 172 Something in his appe   
   rance..interested my attention.   
     1866 G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. i. (1878) 6, I wanted to interest myself   
   in it.   
     1868 Dickens Lett. (1880) II. 334 Your account of the first night interested   
   me immensely.   
      
   Though I may be wrong. The phrasing of the newspaper quote looks prurient.   
      
   --   
   ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /   
   How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’   
   (C. Moore)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)