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The noun shoppiness has had various meanings. In early use, this noun designated, in particular:
– a tendency to ‘talk shop’—i.e., a tendency to talk about matters relating to one’s own business or profession, especially when it is not appropriate to do so;
– something that is characteristic of a shop displaying various kinds of goods—i.e., something that is composed of disparate commonplace elements, as opposed to something that forms a harmonious artistic display.
—Note: The noun shoppiness has probably, in the course of time, been coined on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another—cf., in quotation 4 below, the remark “to coin a word”.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun shoppiness that I have found:
1-: From Biscuits and Grog. Personal Reminiscences and Sketches. By Percival Plug, R.N. (Late Midshipman of H.M.S. “Preposterous.”) Edited by James Hannay (London: John & D. A. Darling, 1848), by the Scottish author and journalist James Hannay (1827-1873) [chapter 2, page 18]—the following is from “A Digression on Seaports”:
As to the military portion of the community, as many of the men in every regiment are of good family, they look down upon the seaport people, and think they do them a great favour by associating with them. […]
And then, reader, the shoppiness of seaport social conversation! When military power is dominant, you hear of So-and-so of the 101st, and So-and-so of the 180th; how Slugsby’s horse ran at the Tweedledum Races; and how Jenkins pulled the nose of Blubber, of the Heavy Baboons Regiment; of the prices of saddles and bridles, and the merits of hair triggers; of the late court martial, and the new cartouche-box.
Even this is more tolerable, however (with shame I confess it), than the shop dialogue of a naval party. There you hear of the Vanguard’s lower deck ports, and the Inconstant’s rate of sailing; of hoisting in a launch or rigging a pinnace.
2-: From The Paris Exhibition. Second Letter, published in Hogg’s Instructor (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) [Vol. 3, July—December 1854, page 514, column 2]:
The general effect of the Exhibition will not equal that of 1851, for there is no concentration of interest, no co-ordination of detail; the display, as such, possesses no unifying character of its own, but is a mere juxtaposition of multifarious objects, brought together with no regard to intrinsic neighbourhood, or to general effect, and is, therefore—for the truth must be spoken—and notwithstanding the beauty and splendour of its elements, marked by a certain air of incongruity, and almost of shoppiness, that contrasts very unfavourably with the artistic and unitary ensemble of the great London Exhibition.
3-: From The Rebuilding of the Public Offices, published in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art (London, England) of Saturday 17th November 1855 [page 49, column 1]:
—Context: In this text, “the individual” designates the British architect James Pennethorne (1801-1871), whose work the author of the article has just criticised:
Such, in addition to one contemptible church, are the artistic antecedents of the individual who is to be entrusted with spending some half million of money to rear a structure so important as the Palace of British Administration—and that, too, at a distance so little removed from the new Palace of British Legislation that, while a worthy counterpart would enhance, and be enhanced by it, a clumsy or even a common-place pile would involve nothing less than a national disgrace. The juxtaposition of the one building and the other would be the symbol of a nation which had put its hand to the plough of art, and taste, and public spirit, and then turned back to more congenial jobbery and shoppiness.
4-: From the following editorial, about “the letter of “A Disgusted Presbyterian” which appears in our columns to-day”, published in The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Wednesday 15th January 1862 [page 4, column 5]:
A minister who regards the progress of Christianity in the colony, and of his own sect especially, so despondingly as to assert that commanding talent will only be temporarily attractive, has apparently but very little heart in his work. There is an unmistakeable “shoppiness,” to coin a word, in the letter of “Disgusted Presbyterian,” which would create the belief that his establishment has not been patronised to the extent he desires.
5-: From a review of International Exhibition, 1862. Official Catalogues and of John Hollingshead’s History of the International Exhibition—review published in The London Quarterly Review (London, England) of July 1862 [page 201]:
First let us notice once for all, in order to blame and to pass on, that, while art has certainly made decided progress between the two dates, so have also puffery and shoppiness. 1862 is better and it is worse than 1851.
6-: From Rambling Papers. No. I. On the Popular Liking for Shop, published in the St Andrews University Magazine (Bonnygate, Cupar, Fife (Scotland): The St Andrews University Magazine Press) of February 1863 [page 75]—here, the noun shoppiness seems to designate an obsession with “Tʜᴇ Sʜᴏᴘ”:
When a certain Frenchman, writing in bitter hatred of the British nation, called it a “nation of shopkeepers,” he uttered unconsciously a truism. […]
[…] The present article is intended simply to show that the Frenchman was right, and spoke much that was true, in a different sense to the one intended. That, in fact, we are a nation of shopkeepers; and that (with compunction be it said) we carry about in our walks, our talks, our drives, our dinners, our ingoings and outcomings, our general life, habits, and conversation, that awful incubus—Tʜᴇ Sʜᴏᴘ.
[…]
And en passant, sweetest twain of fairest readers, most graceful Miss Chantilly and you, dear Mademoiselle Dentelle de Valenciennes, you are no more exempt from the charge of Shoppiness than the veriest sinners among us all!
7-: From The Wrought-Iron Work of the Great Exhibition of 1862, a paper read by one W. White at the Architectural Museum on Tuesday 19th May 1863, published in The Building News and Engineering Journal: A Weekly Illustrated Record of the Progress of Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Engineering, Metropolitan Improvements, Sanitary Reform, &c., &c., &c. (London, England) of Friday 29th May 1863 [page 411, column 2]—here, the noun shoppiness seems to designate the commercial appeal of an object:
Near the noble carved oak lectern in the Ecclesiological Court, is exhibited by a firm which has enjoyed a well-earned reputation as the leading clerical tailor and robe maker in the metropolis, an altar-railing of heavy oak top and bright iron filling […]. In close approximation to this, stands a lectern, not only designed but actually wrought by an amateur artist. Though somewhat crude in workmanship and finish, this lectern is simple and good in design. It exhibits a refreshing absence of shoppiness, and of that precision and polish which the inveterate taste for the file has rendered so prevalent. Not that the file was not used in its manufacture, but the file was used only as a means to an end, instead of being the end to which all metal surfaces must be brought before they will pass muster with a misguided public.
8-: From a review of The Dolomite Mountains. Excursions through Tyrol, Carinthia, Carniola, & Friuli in 1861, 1862, & 1863 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1864), by Josiah Gilbert and G. C. Churchill—review published in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art (London, England) of Saturday 9th July 1864 [page 58, column 1]:
Professional mountaineers in Switzerland are now almost as numerous as cricket professionals at home. It is true they do not get paid for their labours, but in all other respects they fully come up to the professional type. One interest in life alone seems left to them; their very thoughts are frozen, and unable to descend below the snow line; while the dull “shoppiness” of their conversation accurately reflects the monotony of their ideas.
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