[Ads-l] From Britain to Texas
Robin Hamilton
robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM
Tue Sep 20 18:50:52 UTC 2016
Joel,
The 1776 date is from the text Child reproduces (though he notes a possibly
slightly earlier MS by Herd) which puts it well after both the Union of the
Crowns (1603) and the Union of Parliaments (1707).
To my ear, the earliest versions sound very much middle eighteenth century,
possibly influenced by the publication earlier of Allan Ramsay's _Teatable
Miscellany_.
Further than that, I really dunno. The cross-over between actual authentic
echt-folk lyrics, and the "interesting" things that Ramsay does to his texts is
... disturbing.
(Not that Ramsay is directly at issue here, as I think we're into a later
period, but I can hear his ghost chuckling over my shoulder. Ramsay, after all,
inserted the absolutely brilliant, "as well seek hot water beneath cold ice, as
grace from a graceless face" (I quote loosely from memory) into "Johnny
Armstrong's Last Goodnight" -- one of the few instances of a literate
transcriber actually improving on an oral original. Nae sae bad, that wan, even
if he was frae Auld Reekie.)
Robin
(heading back to iron hands in velvet gloves)
> On 20 September 2016 at 19:28 Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> Robin, can you date it before the Acts of Union?
>
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2016 12:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] From Britain to Texas
>
> Hm ... have I been caught with my identity politics showing, or was my
> initial
> howl of outrage justified?
>
> While I take Larry's point, I would draw attention to the level of
> specificity
> which Wilson was adducing -- thus not, "From Britain to America [or 'the
> USA'?]", which I might have been prepared to admit, but from ... what he
> said.
>
> To be fair all round, and perhaps reflecting a level of prejudice which
> was more
> common in the eighteenth century than now, I mibee should have said, "From
> the
> Lowlands of Scotland [couched in braid Scots -- I utterly abhor the
> synthetic
> term, "Lallans"] to Texas [outwith the Nation], rather than either the
> Southron
> Lands or the Gaeltacht [where the teuchters eat their living young]."
>
> Remember Flodden ... Glencoe ... Bloody-handed Claverhouse ... The
> Clearances
> ... the Hag of Grantham and the Poll Tax!
>
> Enough, already.
>
> Outraged from Kelvinside.
>
> (Incidentally, from Larry's list below, the only fraction* of, to give it
> its
> full name, "Great Britain and Northern Ireland", who self-identify as
> "British"
> are Northern Ireland Protestants. Go figure. R.)
>
> * I use the term "fraction" in that instance in its technical Trotskyist**
> sense
> -- I hope everyone was paying close enough attention to give me proper
> credit
> for this.
>
> Himself.
>
> ** Wilson, as a fellow SF aficionado, you might be interested in the work
> of the
> Glasgow [specifically, in this instance ***] writer Ken MacLeod, whose
> first
> novel was called _The Star Fraction_. A seriously gallus cheil, thon yin.
>
> a.k.a. The Wee MacGreegor
>
> *** One last ultra-pedantic point -- parts of _The Star Faction_ aren't
> simply
> located in Glasgow, but in a howlingly local time frame, since in my day,
> the
> Queen Margaret Union didn't allow critters of the male persuasion entrance
> other
> than to a very narrow range of social events. I'd place it mid to late
> seventies.
>
> The Gonzo Scholar
>
> (Oh, I know I shouldn't, but I just remembered this, and it's too good not
> to
> pass on -- somewhere embedded in _The Star Fraction_ is a Trotskyist
> version of
> the Dilly song, known in America as "Children, come as I call thee". Is
> that
> the correct title? Whatever, a traditional counting song, best rendered
> by the
> Seekers IMHO.
>
> The Lilywhite Boy)
>
> >
> > On 20 September 2016 at 16:11 Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> > mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU >
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > But wouldn't Scots folk tales, songs, and singers also be British?
> > Does
> > "Britain" not include Scotland, Wales, and at least Northern
> > Ireland--i.e.
> > those who make up the Br in Brexit? (And yes, I know how the Scots
> > voted.) Or
> > is that just Great Britain?
> >
> > LH
> >
> > > On Sep 20, 2016, at 12:24 AM, Robin Hamilton
> > > <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM
> > > mailto:robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM > wrote:
> > >
> > > Wilson, how *could* you do this -- "From Britain [sic] to Texas".
> > > The
> > > earliest
> > > (and best early) versions are SCOTS!!! (Sorry to shout, but.)
> > >
> > > Bet you it jumps straight from Scotland to the blues singers,
> > > without
> > > touching
> > > on England on the way. (I exaggerate, I spose.)
> > >
> > > It's Child 274:
> > >
> > > Hame came our goodman,
> > >
> > > And hame came he,
> > >
> > > And then he saw a saddle-horse,
> > >
> > > Where nae horse should be. [1776]
> > >
> > > Aw, I'll forgive you just this one time, since you pointed me to
> > > Coley
> > > Jones,
> > > who I hadn't encountered before.
> > >
> > > Robin
> > >
> > >>
> > >> On 20 September 2016 at 04:41 Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM
> > >> mailto:hwgray at GMAIL.COM > wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Chief British Poets of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
> > >> Pages 328b-330a
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__books.google.com_books-3Fid-3D9DtAAAAAIAAJ&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=gn6kypuATnI8itY13JCzbrav7Uk9LyrC0qtggpNf8cE&e=
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__books.google.com_books-3Fid-3D9DtAAAAAIAAJ&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=gn6kypuATnI8itY13JCzbrav7Uk9LyrC0qtggpNf8cE&e=
> > >> William Allan Neilson, Kenneth Grant Tremayne Webster - 1916 -
> > >> English
> > >> poetry
> > >>
> > >> GBooks has the poem back to 1795 in snippet.
> > >>
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3D5wc6CPxzxP8&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=yDA8pk_E9t3bqrQfV-c_XEnYrn-txwAS3GQiavSVAzg&e=
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3D5wc6CPxzxP8&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=yDA8pk_E9t3bqrQfV-c_XEnYrn-txwAS3GQiavSVAzg&e=
> > >> Coley Jones - Drunkard's Special from the album, TexasBlues
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> -Wilson
> > >> -----
> > >> 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.
> > >> -Mark Twain
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> The American Dialect Society -
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=1rWL8dRNA1WNX6Yktbv6DS4K-tx6_Hu2UtEZAP8T39k&e=
> > >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=1rWL8dRNA1WNX6Yktbv6DS4K-tx6_Hu2UtEZAP8T39k&e=
> > >>
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society -
> > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=1rWL8dRNA1WNX6Yktbv6DS4K-tx6_Hu2UtEZAP8T39k&e=
> > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=_FsS1xjTUxS_tU0W1vVpKxx7EMscM4wa7oVDiDpU9j8&s=1rWL8dRNA1WNX6Yktbv6DS4K-tx6_Hu2UtEZAP8T39k&e=
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society -http://www.americandialect.org/
>
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -http://www.americandialect.org/
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list