pearl-clutcher

plural pearl-clutchers

1. derogatoryidiomaticA prim, prudish, or easily offended person.

   It’s a dynamic that goes back to the rude, rule-breaking Groucho Marx—destroyer of élites!—and Margaret Dumont, pop culture’s primal pearl-clutcher.

   2017 January 16, Emily Nussbaum, “How Jokes Won the 2016 Election”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 12 Jul 2018, retrieved 24 Aug 2021

   3 more examples

   The intended message of the pearls wasn’t entirely clear, though one interpretation was that the lawmakers were trying to paint members of the group as “pearl clutchers” — suggesting that they were being overly sensitive.

   2019 March 6, Kate Taylor, “How the Meaning of a String of Pearls Upstaged a Gun Control Debate”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 Apr 2023

   It’s my reaction to the violence, however, that I have found most surprising. I have gone from somebody who doesn’t mind any level of gore to a pearl-clutcher of the highest order.

   2020 April 24, Romesh Ranganathan, “I'm finally watching Game of Thrones and it's made me a total pearl-clutcher”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2020

   Eco Lifestyle adds features that The Sims’ enormous Gen Z audience had long been asking for, such as septum piercings and boho fashions that would look great down the allotment – and loads that surely nobody was asking for, including candle-making and the attractive prospect of having sex in dumpsters, thus fulfilling every older pearl-clutcher’s worst imaginings about the filthy eco-conscious young.

   2020 June 9, Keza MacDonald, “The Sims gets a climate-friendly makeover in Eco Lifestyle”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 25 Jul 2020