[Ads-l] =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=9CDixie=E2=80=9D_?=in the New Yorker

[Jonathan Lighter]

>  the claim that D. D. Emmett was necessarily the first to use the word
"Dixie" in reference to the south, is, at least, less than a given.

Strictly this is true.  But I think the larger question is whether any
person, or ten thousand persons, randomly chosen from the U.S. population,
was in any degree likely to have heard the word in this sense before 1859,
and I think the answer is no.  Every indication is that "Dixie = the South"
was "introduced into the language" by Emmett and his song. Over thirty
million people alive in 1858 lived long and productive lives in ignorance
of it.

JL

On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 10:38 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> I agree that D. D. Emmett--as far as I know--did write the music for Dixie.
>
> Yet, given the several newspaper uses of "south of Dixon's line" (e.g.
> 1838, 1841, etc. and...1858) and "south of.... Dixon's land," and given the
> Dixie kid's games, with borders and two sides, and given Ben Zimmer in The
> Atlantic writing "Jonathan Lighter, the editor of the Historical Dictionary
> of American Slang, pieced together evidence that connects the Mason-Dixon
> line to Dixie via an unexpected intermediary: a children’s game played in
> New York City," and given additional finds by Barry Popik, and others--and
> maybe given the D. Dix asylum proposal in 1858 and following backlashes
> (she did manage a state not federal hospital in Raleigh)--the claim that D.
> D. Emmett was necessarily the first to use the word "Dixie" in reference to
> the south, is, at least, less than a given.
>
> Stephen Goranson
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 9:50 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: “Dixie” in the New Yorker
>
> I read the book about the Snowdens not long after it appeared. Indications
> that the Snowdens composed "Dixie," and that Emmett then "stole" it, are,
> IMO, almost non-existent.
>
> As I posted elsewhere some fifteen years ago:
>
> > Prof. Sacks is to be commended for being able to retain her good humor
> despite criticisms of "Way Up North in Dixie." As earlier reviewers have
> noted, "Way Up North in Dixie" really does provide a new and unique picture
> of a free African American family in Ohio before the Civil War.
>
> But the question here is whether Daniel Emmett wrote "Dixie." The evidence
> all together, including that unearthed through dedicated work by the
> authors of "Way Up North in Dixie," says that yes, he really did. To assume
> otherwise on the basis of hearsay and conjecture is, I think, to engage in
> wishful thinking - as is pressing a position that has so few facts to
> recommend it.
>
> I wonder, for example, what substantive resemblance there is between the
> melody of "Dixie" (surely the song's strongest and most defining feature)
> and African American melodies in general? There's no first-hand
> contemporary counterclaim of authorship by anyone, and the circumstantial
> evidence for the Snowdens' involvement is limited. Whereas Emmett was a
> professional pop musician, there's no evidence that any of the Snowdens
> composed striking new melodies in a European style, and no demonstrated
> connection of "Dixie" to black musical idioms.
>
> It's no surprise, but Daniel Emmett wrote "Dixie."  <
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 10:30 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > “ Its use as a doting nickname for the Confederacy was popularized by “I
> > Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land,” a minstrel song published in 1860 and
> usually
> > performed in blackface. The song is credited to Daniel Decatur Emmett, a
> > white man from Knox County, Ohio, though the scholars Howard and Judith
> > Sacks have suggested that Emmett stole the tune from the Snowdens, a
> family
> > of freed slaves who performed and farmed around Emmett’s home town.”
> >
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/why-the-chicks-dropped-their-dixie__;!!OToaGQ!-LEgrJWpiJ_eoeV2MRoVIDfcKnOuKolzpu6PGcEsrcqvnlali3bQQl9nOzYoCs_0$
> >
> > --
> > Andy Bach
> > Afbach at gmail.com
> > Not at my desk
> >
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> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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