I came across a copy of the Girl’s Own Paper from 1912, and was very intrigued by the handwork section, and in particular, by the spellings in the handwork section. You see, the Girl’s Own Paper spells doily d’oilie. How peculiar!  At first I thought it might just have been an old-fashioned term for doily, and I have never noticed it before. To make matters more confusing, the magazines ads spell it d’oyley So I thought a bit more, and realised that I was sure I had read 19th century articles about doilies, and d’oyleys, but never d’oilies. So I did a bit of research, and guess what?  I can’t find a single mention of d’oilies or by that spelling in anything but the Girl’s Own Paper. New Zealand newspapers from the turn of the century spell it doily, d’oyley, doyley, and doilie, with the first spelling being vastly more common, and the last only appearing for a brief period at the turn of the century. But why all the variants? I think I have …