Up on the floor

Reentering the house after a visit to the pork butcher's Bloom is distracted by Boylan's letter to his wife and forgets where he has left his hat: "Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor."

This humorous way of referring to things left or piled on the floor was a popular idiom in Bloom’s day (Joyce had previously noted the expression in NLI 5A):

I found fur cap and cloak hanging up on the floor in the cloakroom.

Daily Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) (1873), 29 June, p. 29

I'm open to admit I laughed the heel of my boot clean through the brim of my own chaste 'topper', which was hung up on the floor under my seat.

Pick-me-up (1890), vol. 2, p. 118

By an effort I controlled myself, and began to take my coat and hat and veil and things off. As I could see no pegs anywhere I hung them up on the floor.

Cynthia Stockley, The Claw (1911), p. 81

Harald Beck

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