[Ads-l] folksinger

[Jonathan Lighter]

Probably so. Jacob Grimm has "Volkssinger" in his _Ueber den altdeutschen
Meistergesang_ (1811):

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hny36v&view=1up&seq=37&q1=volkssinger

JL

On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 4:21 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Might this have originally been a calque from the German?  (Or at least
> from a German?)
>
> LH
>
> On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 2:03 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > OED: 1898.
> > These refer to poets whose works popular works supposedly give voice to
> > their national culture:
> >
> > 1884 _Daily News_ (Chicago) (Nov. 2) 2:  Even in his own day [Heine] was
> > accepted as a folk-singer, and his rhymes found their way to the hearts
> of
> > the people and the lips of the peasantry.
> >
> >  1896 _Sunday Inter-Ocean_ (Chicago) (July 19) 8: Karl Michael Bellman is
> > Sweden's national folk singer and poet, and lived during the time
> > of...Gustavus III.
> >
> >  Figuratively applied to a famous composer:
> >
> >  1907 _Nome Daily Nugget_ (Dec. 7) 3: A Folk Singer of the North...Edvard
> > Grieg.
> >
> >
> > But now we're getting modern:
> >
> > 1908 _Rock Island [Ill.] Argus_ (Sept. 12) 10 : Her company consists of
> > Rita Rich, a folk singer of all nations...."  [Who presumably sang in an
> > elite style.]
> >
> > 1912 _Boston Morning Journal_ (Jan. 23) 9:  Ten whirlwind dancers,
> > musicians and folk singers from Russia.
> >
> > 1917 _New York Times (Dec. 2) IX 3:  Cecil Sharp Publishes His Finds in
> the
> > American South....His enthusiasm for his folk singers carries him far
> >
> >
> > So as early as 1918 there wasn't much natural agreement on what a "folk
> > singer" sang or how he sang it.
> >
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "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
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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