flyting and rap

[Jonathan Lighter]

The "slang songs" seem scarcely to have been known in the U.S. and may have
been primarily self-conscious pastiches written by satirists rather than a
genuine "voice of the people." So they're of minor relevance. But they do
provide an interesting earlier parallel of anti-conventional verse couched
in the "language of the streets."

"The Night Before Larry Was Stretched" (ca1798) is easily the most
anthologized.

John S. Farmer's 1896 collection, _Musa Pedestris_, is almost definitive of
what was in print by that time.

JL




On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: flyting and rap
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think my mind is going: such screw-ups on my part are becoming more
> commonplace.
>
> Thanks for the enlightenment: I notice that unlike others, you're not
> attempting to push the roots of rap *waaay* back, with the exception
> of the slang songs.
>
> Unlike the flyting comparison, the connections to the you toasts and
> the slang songs I think are much more relevant to the content of rap.
>
> ---Amy West
>
> >Date:    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:53:29 -0500
> >From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject: Re: flyting and rap
> >
> >***
> >Playing the "nines"?  That sounds like baseball. "Playing the dozens" is
> the
> >usual idiom.
>
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