[Ads-l] Antedating of "Folk-Singer"

[Margaret Winters]

There is a murder mystery by Ellis Peters called "Black is the Colour" which takes place at a weekend course on folk music and spends a certain amount of time with the question of how to define folk music.  It's good reading.

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MARGARET E WINTERS
Former Provost
Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI  48202

mewinters at wayne.edu

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2023 9:56 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Folk-Singer"

[EXTERNAL]

What I find interesting is that the first "folk singers" appear to have
been national poets or, in the case of the sagas, storytellers.

The "Great Man" theory as applied to national cultures.

What is "folk" has been a vexed question for a long time.

Music review by John Donahue in _The New Yorker_, June 8, 2015, p. 26:

"Olivia Chaney...is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into
the twenty-first century...She often performs barefoot....When she takes
her place behind the harmonium ... and, with a steely gaze, starts singing,
it's as if a mystical spirit has entered the room. It's chilling when she
slowly intones 'Stand by the roadside/ facing the headlights/ wait for the
break of dawn,' on her adaptation of 'Blessed Instant,' by the Norwegian
jazz singer Sidsel Endresen...."

JL

On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 8:42 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> I believe the second article I ever published, many years ago, was titled
> "Antedatings of Folk- Compounds in OED and Its Supplement."  The etymology
> of these compounds is complicated: some of them were inspired by W. J.
> Thoms's coinage of "folk-lore" in 1846, others were formed on German models.
>
> folk-singer (OED 1898)
>
> 1870 _The Orchestra_ 2 Sept. 378 (ProQuest)  Dupont on the other hand was
> a Folk singer -- a poet of the people.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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