antedating "folk music"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Excellent antedatings, Jon!  The "folk-" compounds are interesting; some of them were inspired by W. J. Thoms's coinage of "folk-lore," others were formed on German models.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 7:53 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: antedating "folk music"

OED: 1889  (G. B. Shaw).

1852 Andrew Hamilton _Sixteen Months in the Danish Isles_  II (London:
Bentley) 46: The melody was sufficiently simple, and, doubtless, as old as
the words; it had a slight cast of the wildness almost inseparable from
folk-music; but on the whole the ballad airs are in general not so original
as  other kinds of Danish popular music.

1859 H. D'Avenet in _Notes & Queries_  (2nd Ser.) VII (June 4) 451: This
class of artizans [bell-founders], the great purveyors of folk-music.

1861 Richard Grant White _National Hymns_ (N.Y.: Rudd & Carleton)  29: Of
airs properly national, it should be remembered, the composers are not
known. They are found existing among the people, who are ignorant of their
origin. They are, to borrow a German-phrase, folk-music.

The term seems not to have become generally familiar till after 1900.

JL
-
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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

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