re left, left, left my wife etc.

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

I remember reading (not in an Army context--perhaps in my folkie days in the
'60s-‘70s) that “hayfoot, strawfoot” was used by American drill sergeants in
WWI (Civil War, Spanish-American War . . .?) with recruits so backwoods and
rural that left and right sparked no reflexes.  I recall a folk
song-marching song  (maybe a variant of Turkey in the Straw, which at any
rate refers to the GEE and HAW of ox-drivers) that used “hayfoot,
strawfoot”.  I’m pretty sure it predated October 1917 (maybe Prof. Gray’s
documentary is just another example of early Soviets’  claiming all advances
of civilization for socialism.  IMDB has a citation for “Hay Foot, Straw
Foot (1919)”).  

 

Bruce Catton, who ought to know, wrote this in a piece for American Heritage
magazine in 1957:  

=======  http://tinyurl.com/35ymds 

Similarly, the drill sergeants repeatedly found that among the raw recruits
there were men so abysmally untaught that they did not know left from right,
and hence could not step off on the left foot as all soldiers should. To
teach these lads how to march, the sergeants would tie a wisp of hay to the
left foot and a wisp of straw to the right; then, setting the men to march,
they would chant, “Hay-foot, straw-foot, hay-foot, straw-foot”—and so on,
until everybody had caught on. A common name for a green recruit in those
days was “strawfoot.”

On the drill field, when a squad was getting basic training, the men were as
likely as not to intone a little rhythmic chant as they tramped across the
sod—thus:

March! March.! March old soldier march!

Hayfoot, strawfoot,

Belly-full of bean soup—

March old soldier march!

=====

 

Seán Fitzpatrick

It’s a Gnostic thing. You wouldn't understand.

http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Wilson Gray [mailto:hwgray at GMAIL.COM] 
Sent: Monday, 19 February, 2007 00:21
Subject: Re: re left, left, left my wife etc.

 

Supposedly used at Fort Hood, Texas, in the 'Fifties:

 

Sergeant:

To your left, your right

Your left, your right

Your left, your right

Your left

 

Soldiers:

Our packs are heavy

Our belts are tight

Our balls are swinging from

Left to right

 

Sergeant

Left

Left, etc.

 

As for "hay foot, straw foot," when I was at the Army Language School

in 1960, the story was told WRT the training of peasants drafted into

the Red Army. In fact, we were even shown a documentary of Red Army

recruits actually undergoing such training. I'd heard the phrase some

years earlier, but I didn't have a context for it until I'd heard the

Red Army story.

 

BTW, wasn't there an old pop song entitled "Goofus" that had a

somewhat similar line or verse in it?

 

-Wilson

 

On 2/18/07, Rowyn McDonald <rowynm at stanford.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------

> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>

> Poster:       Rowyn McDonald <rowynm at STANFORD.EDU>

> Subject:      Re: re left, left, left my wife etc.

>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

> 

> Is the 3-beat blank you're missing "gingerbread"?

> 

> I know it as:

> 

> "Left, left, left, right, left

> Left my wife and forty-eight children

> Alone in the kitchen with nothing but gingerbread

> left, left, right, left."

> 

> -Rowyn McDonald

> 

> sagehen wrote:

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------

> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>

> > Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>

> > Subject:      Re: re left, left, left my wife etc.

> >
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

> >

> >  The version I remember, from the '40s went:

> > "Left, left, left my wife & forty-eight kids

> > To starve to death on nothing but _____ " (3 beats)

> > but I can't remember what _______ was !

> > AM

> >

> > ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>

> >

> > ------------------------------------------------------------

> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

> >

> >

> 

> ------------------------------------------------------------

> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

> 

 

 

--

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to

come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

-----

-Sam'l Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
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