[Ads-l] 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall - about flies?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is a version of the end of the lyrics in 1893. This song really
needs some kind of elaborate payoff instead of an anti-climax.

Date: September 27, 1893
Newspaper: Alexandria Gazette
Newspaper Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111330085/three-blue-bottles/

[Begin excerpt]
There is one blue bottle hanging on the wall,
There is one blue bottle hanging on the wall.
Take one blue bottle down from the wall,
And no blue bottle is hanging on the wall.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 9:03 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Impressive research, Peter. Illinois can be added to the set of early
> states based on the “Chicago Tribune” citation below in which a group
> sang "Ninety-Nine Blue Bottles" around a campfire. The piece was
> reprinted from “The New York World”, and the camp was in the
> Adirondacks. So New York can also be added to the set of early states.
>
> Date: September 20, 1885
> Newspaper: Chicago Tribune
> Newspaper Location: Chicago, Illinois
> Article: Men Invade the Camp (Acknowledgment New York World)
> Quote Page 13, Column 6
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/349746363/?terms=%22ninety-nine%22
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> At first her music goes rather well, and in the evening when everybody
> gathers round the camp-fire and sings "Ninety-Nine Blue Bottles" or
> "Marching Through Georgia" to her accompaniment you think that her
> bringing a banjo into the woods was an inspiration ...
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 8:15 PM Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I researched the history of 99 bottles of beer on the wall and learned several things.
> >
> > It dates to about the mid 1940s.
> >
> > There is a well-known British analog called “Ten Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall” which I had never heard of.  It dates to the late-1920s.
> >
> > Both British and American troops sang an earlier version of the song during WW I, which the Brits may have picked up from the Americans.
> >
> > There was an earlier American version, usually sung as “99 (or 49) Blue Bottles Hanging on the Wall,” which appears to have had the same tune as the modern British version.   The earlier American version dates to about 1884.
> >
> > When I tried to figure out what “blue bottles” referred to, the one thing that seems to have been in common use at the time related to flies – “blue bottle flies,” commonly called simply “blue bottles” at the time.  That might explain why the bottles are hanging on the wall, which doesn’t seem to make much sense.
> >
> > https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2022/10/blue-bottles-green-bottles-and-flies.html
> >
> >
> > Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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