[Ads-l] Dixie notes

Sun Jan 29 13:47:58 UTC 2017

Stephen, thank you for reminding me that I also posted here.

I believe I posted the same information to both lists.

I wonder if the performer that Emmett heard using the phrase "Dixie's land"
was somehow alluding metaphorically to the reported term in the game of
tag, and that Emmett misunderstood it as a common synonym for the South - a
synonym for which there seems to be no persuasive pre-Emmett evidence.

JL

On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 8:14 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> Jonathan,
>
> Forum for Ballad Scholars appears to be a closed list.
>
> Anything you'd care to mention here to update HDAS and your 11 Nov 2007
> ads-l post that I footnoted yesterday (su: "Is it true what they say about
> Dixie")*? Or was that the same information to two lists?
>
>
> *https://tinyurl.com/hlyq47b
>
>
> Stephen
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <>
> ...Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:41 AM
> To: ...
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Dixie notes
>
> I posted a number of significant observations to the Forum for Ballad
> Scholars in 2007:
>
> BALLAD-L at LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Emmett did not claim to have coined the words "Dixie" or "Dixie's Land"
> > (the actual name of the song).
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> *If*--not yet established--Dixie (as in Dixie's Land, Dixie Land, Land
> of
> >> Dixey, etc.) was derived from the Mason-Dixon Line, and one side of
> that,
> >> did the children's dance (?) "Dixey's Land" published in NY but set as a
> >> sequel to "The [sic, A] Christmas Carol" [1] also so derive or not, but
> a
> >> coincidence?
> >>
> >>
> >> [Among semi-skeptics, after favorably quoting HDAS, D. Gold, St. in Ety.
> >> 155,  the Mason and Dixon line "...may have been too little known to the
> >> average person to give rise to a word as informal as Dixie."]
> >>
> >>
> >> Plain Dealer [Cleveland OH] Feb. 18, 1856:
> >>
> >> The Petersburg (Va.) Democrat, of the 5th inst., states that, at
> >> Richmond, the week previous, Susan Denin, the noted actress, was
> married to
> >> Mr. Huntington, a member of Christy's Minstrels. Huntington is better
> known
> >> as "Dan Emmett."
> >>
> >>
> >> Give the above, note that Susan Denin, reportedly, sang a rousing
> version
> >> of Dixie in 1961 in New Orleans. Not mentioned in Hans Nathan's
> Minstrelsy
> >> 1962 book (1977 2nd. ed., non vide).
> >>
> >>
> >> Speaking of N. O., the Dix-s, French-voiced Ten, bills, seem an unlikely
> >> source.
> >>
> >>
> >> Can Henry Hotze, Confederate propagandist and racist and editor of The
> >> Index [London] be taken as a reliable witness in claiming that northern
> >> blacks had before 1859 "for years" exclaimed "I wish I were in Dixie"?
> >>
> >>
> >> Were the reports of kind slave owner Dix or Dixey (etc.) in New York
> >> claimed counter nostalgia propaganda (fake news fighting fake news?)?
> >>
> >>
> >> Dan Emmett did claim--in contradictory accounts--composing the song (Way
> >> Up North in Dixie by H. and J. Sacks claims otherwise) but--correct me
> if
> >> not so--did not claim the origin of the term Dixie?
> >>
> >>
> >> If Dixie were overdetermined (avant la lettre?) might we recall that
> >> Dorothea Dix championed a bill in the US Congress 1852-1856 for federal
> >> land to be given for asylum and treatment of the mentally ill? And that
> >> this bill was referred to as, among other things, Miss Dix's Land Bill
> and
> >> Miss Dix's Land Grant Bill. (Passed by both chambers in 1856 but vetoed
> by
> >> F. Pierce)
> >>
> >>
> >> Be that as it may, in 1861 an odd note was published apparently
> concerned
> >> with Miss Dix, who also urged prison reform:
> >>
> >>
> >> [headline] Miss Dix's Land
> >>
> >>
> >> [text] Sing-Sing, [sic: sing hyphen sing comma vacat]
> >>
> >>
> >> Stephen Goranson
> >>
> >> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
> >>
>
> >> [1]
> >>
> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__
> listserv.linguistlist.org_pipermail_ads-2Dl_2007-2DNovemb&d=CwIBaQ&c=
> imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-
> 8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=bsSx_N6-
> 2eUpCQtIMorQ1KbFWPal171jlJ3xro9quHw&s=AP-L7ffjB-
> w7qZjOOzRMDosCghRouPOBlnNIbx6wzaI&e=
> >> er/075982.
>
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>

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