OT: One of Butch's Sayings ** And History

[Guest guest]

At 03:57 PM 12/18/2002 -0800, Butch Owen wrote:

>Hi Anya,

>

>> I was watching a great movie the other day - The Songcatcher - and

>> someone mentioned something was 'finer than frog's hair'. I always

>> knew what Butch meant when he wrote that, but this is the first time I

>> ever heard it out of someone's mouth.

>

>You need to go East a bit .. or maybe even to the panhandle of Florida

>where the folks are real Southern folks. ;-p Them folks tawk in a real

>descriptive manner .. use graphic examples so folks don't disunderstand

>whut they trying to say. Ain't no question that tighter'n a gnat's butt

>stretched over a wagon wheel is tight .. or uglier'n a wart hog is ugly.

>And social anthropologists say that most of the Southern sayings are

>bastardizations of ancient European sayings .. particularly those found

>in what was the British Empire.

 

" Tawk " ? Are you sure they aren't from Philly like me, LOL? The 'descriptive

manner' sounds like the Jamaican patois -- it's a form of Olde English, and

very, very descriptive, ha. I still crack up when I think of my Jamaican

holy man saying " I went to England last year and I learned the phrase

'tough shit'. I like that phrase. "

 

We from Philly have a broad English " A " in our speech, and many, many old

English sayings (tough shit being one of them).

 

>

>> Gotta talk about the movie. It's the true story of a musicologist who,

>> in the early 1900s, travels to Appalachia and discovers that the

>> people there have a song culture, and that the songs are unchanged

>> from England, Ireland and Scotland 200-300 years previously. Pure and

>> unevolved, a historical find.

>

>Yes'm .. glad you brought this up cause its a nat'ul fact that isolation

>preserves history. One of America's greatest historical writers, a man

>who holds the distinction of being the only person to ever have 5 books

>on the New York Times Best Sellers List in one year .. John Jakes, has

>discussed what you're talking about above. He was dealing with South

>Carolina at the time and comparing some of the Granny songs to famous

>ballads from Ireland, Scotland and Wales hundreds of years before .. and

>none of the grannies knew a thing about the classics of Old England.

>They learned the songs and tales from their mommas. :-p

 

On my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother's side of the family, this is

noticable. Her family came to upstate PA in 1690. And stayed there. They're

still using an ancient dialect, old recipes and ways that modern Germans

have evolved out of. Ditto with the Cubans here in Miami. They still have

an accent that is not found in Cuban anymore, and old recipes that have

never changed. Hard to imagine that in just 40 years the difference is

noted, but it is, by all who study modern Cuba and the exiles here.

>

>> The voices of the actors, and their accents are fabulous. You really

>> feel you are *there*.

>

>I sho'nuf would have liked that one .. thanks much for the info.

 

I'm taping it right now! It's on again. I'll send it off maybe early next

week when the lines at the P.O. have calmed down.

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