[Ads-l] Antedating of G-string

[Jonathan Lighter]

 Wilson, that's a highly launderized version of a _sub-rosa_
nineteenth-century song - which elaborately rewrites one from the
eighteenth.

The folksong collector James Carpenter recorded a version in the 1920s from
an English sailor who'd learned it in the '80s.

George's discovery has inspired me to pick up where I left off on an
article on the subject. Don't, however, hold your breath.

Thanks, George!

JL

JL



On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Apr 6, 2016, at 12:35 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 10:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> there was once a subgenre of sea songs which elaborated on the precise
> >> situation posited: a sexual encounter euphemistically described as a sea
> >> battle.
> >>
> >
> > Do you remember Guy Mitchell's 1950 hit, "The Roving Kid"?
>
> Hmmm.  I believe that's a somewhat different ballad, "Ramblin' Boy".  ;-)
>
> LH
>
> > It was a rather
> > weak - well, it was the '50's - example of a song of that genre:
> >
> > She had a dark and a roving eye
> > And her hair hung down in ringlets
> > She was a nice girl, a proper girl
> > But one of the roving kind
> >
> > As I cruised out, one evening, upon a night's career
> > I spied a lofty clipper ship and to her I did steer
> > I hoisted up my signals, which she so quickly knew
> > And, when she saw my bunting fly, she immediately hove to
> >
> > Etc.
> > --
> > -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=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=4FRPAZFf9H0e9ASqhCqMCbf-NgqLmI5gRSR851JGgX0&s=wuLnhfkaKgOkOF__8m3bmWNAQREnPnHpRvehMGvj2IM&e=
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"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