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

[Geoffrey Nathan]

Margaret and I, who are traditional (and modern) folk music fans (particularly Scottish and
other British Isles and Nova Scotia) have often discussed the category. An early Cognitive Grammar
concept, the 'radial prototype category’ fits well here. When we listen to a 'folk music' channel
(SiriusXM, Folk Alley) there's only a tenuous thread among the songs. For example, Judy Collins singing
Sondheim's  'Send in the Clowns', or, conversely, Sting singing  'Long Black Veil'.
Just musing on the semantics of the term…

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993

geoffnathan at wayne.edu


From: Jonathan Lighter<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2023 9:57 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Folk-Singer"

[EXTERNAL]

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Folk-Singer"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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=E2=80=AFAM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.ed=
u> wrote:

> I believe the second article I ever published, many years ago, was titled
> "Antedatings of Folk- Compounds in OED and Its Supplement."  The etymolog=
y
> 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 mode=
ls.
>
> 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
>


--=20
"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