"left, right" [was: Cadence]

[Geoff Nathan]

So far nobody has referenced the parody in Sondheim's 'A Funny thing happened on the way to the forum':

http://letras.com/sondheim-stephen/bring-me-my-bride/

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.


----- Original Message -----

> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 2:39:27 PM
> Subject: Re: "left, right" [was: Cadence]

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: "left, right" [was: Cadence]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> When I was at the Army Language School, we saw a film in which Red
> Army
> recruits were shown with a bundle of hay on the bottoms of their left
> feet
> and a bundle of straw on the bottoms of their right foot, as they
> quite
> clumsily - the bundles were bigger than the soldiers' feet, about the
> size
> of small sheafs - tried to get the hang of marching.

> It was a silent film from way back when and was by no means meant to
> illustrate the training methods of the contemporary Red Army of the
> '50's
> and '60's.

> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:21 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
> wrote:

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject: Re: "left, right" [was: Cadence]
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 6/17/2014 11:41 AM, Bill Mullins wrote:
> > >That is one of the more familiar chants from the "Jodie Cadence,"
> > >which spread throughout the military service after Jackson devised
> > >it to help a group of unco-ordinated recruits learn how to march
> > >in
> > >1943 at Camp Barkley, Texas."
> >
> > In 1686 John Dunton wrote that "a wild Irish Man" in the military
> > would be given bread for one pocket and cheese for the other, and
> > then instead of left or right be commanded to turn toward bread or
> > cheese.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >

> --
> -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 - http://www.americandialect.org

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