[Ads-l] Antedating (?) Joe Soap

[Jonathan Lighter]

The revue "Oh, What a Lovely War!" (1963) included improvised songs sung by
British troops in WW1. And, supposedly, only such songs.

One of these is "Forward, Joe Soap's Army," easily findable online.  To the
obvious hymn tune.

I can't find an earlier appearance of the song.  (Decades ago I was able to
find the sources of - IIRC - every other song in the show.)

JL



On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 12:28 PM, Michael Quinion <
michael.quinion at worldwidewords.org> wrote:

> On 04/09/2016 16:09, Peter Morris wrote:
>
> "Joe Soap"
>> World Wide Words has 1943 as thye earliest citation.
>>
>> http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-joe2.htm
>>
>> Here's one that appears to be from 1934.
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/jlwhwuk
>>
>>
>> Disclaimers about Google dating apply, but it appears right in this case.
>> Searching 1934 in the text shows a date for publication.
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/hqsuty8
>>
>
> Thank you. Another piece that now needs updating! I do wonder about a
> possible derivation of /Joe Soap/ from /no soap/. My piece mentions a
> possible connection with /dope/.
>
> --
> Michael Quinion, World Wide Words
> http://www.worldwidewords.org
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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