Again I find an excuse to hijack tsuwm's wwftd: "woodshedding". My excuse is that only someone my age would know what a woodshed was, or what pain in posterior was predicted by the command from paterfamilias "Come with me to the woodshed." In the days when the great majority of homes was heated by wood, there were two little houses behind the home. for two different kinds of comfort. The firewood had to be kept dry, , but in particular the kindling to light the fire had to be dry. And the kindlling was a convenient size with which to administer corporal punishment. And the woodshed was far enough away from the home that sympathetic mother did not have to suffer the vocalizations of the culprit.
The woodshed was never big enough for a barbershop quartet. That part of the quote makes no sense to me.

Subject:
today's wwftd is... woodshedding
Date:
Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:07:34 -0500 (CDT)
From:
wwftd master <mikef3@cfsmo.honeywell.com>
To:
wwftd minions <tsuwm@aol.com>
the worthless word for the day is: woodshedding

[vbl. n.] a) the dispensing of punishment
b) the practice or rehearsal of music
c) spontaneous or improvised barber-shop singing

No head falsetto here but complete, out of the honest breast,
a baritone voice brought over years of woodshedding up to this range.
-Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_

-tsuwm http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/

Here is a 44-year-old, Dr Bill, with familiarity with woodsheds and their implications.

Re "The woodshed was never big enough for a barbershop quartet. That part of the quote makes no sense to me.", I understood the connection to be that the sounds coming from spontaneous or improvised barber-shop singing would not be unlike the sounds emitting from a delinquent boy receiving a woodshedding.

Dear Sparteye: I never heard of a barbershop quartet made up of four sopranos.

thanks, bill; I now have all three(c) meanings attested to by loyal correspondents. as to the sense of it all, Occam's razor often doesn't suffice -- cf. southpaw.

Judi writes: If you WERE a "Barbershopper" you wouldn't consider this a "worthless
word"........ Sing bass for the women's group myself.

Tom offers: Being a frequent trumpet-playing member of community theater
orchestra pits, I can verify that definition b is actually used, usually
in the context of a conductor suggesting to a player that he or she
do some woodshedding, said suggestion usually being made
because he or she sucks.

sounds emitting from a delinquent boy receiving a woodshedding

The common musical use of the term is b) with the connotation of working on basics, often outside the context of a full group. I might suspect that the specialized barber-shop meaning is a derivation of this rather than a harkening back to the original meaning. I know some barber-shop singers whom I will see next week. I'll try to remember to ask them. Communal memory, E?

Does Judi have an ovarian tumor? Only way she could sing bass I know of.

Judi writes: If you WERE a "Barbershopper" you wouldn't consider this a "worthless
word"........ Sing bass for the women's group myself.

I also knew a woman bass. No health problems other than smoker's throat that I knew of. She wasn't very good, but she was a better bass than she was a tenor.

...and, if you're going to have a women's b-s quartet, *someone's got to sing the bass parts.

I know what falsetto is. That's the way I talk to cats. But how can even a contralto sound like a bass?
No Boris Gudanov there.

P.S. Too late I realise I should have said:" She would not be Gudanov."

how can even a contralto sound like a bass?

Falsone

These speculations on the connection between the different definitions are all well, but the truth lies herein:

In Kansas City near the beginning of the twentieth century there was a young boy named William who was notoriously naughty. His father took him out in the backyard very often to punish him and the beatings were so painful that he literally rose from the ground each time he was hit. These punishments stayed with him all his life. When he grew up he became a wonderful pianist/bandleader and he immortalized the punishment in one of his songs, the Count Basie classic, "Jumpin' at the Woodshed."

I know, I know, it was bad . . .

Dear Faldage: I looked up Falsone. Several references to an actor playing Homicide cop, but nothing to suggest he sings, let alone as a transvestite in a female barbershop group. So no' capisco.

I think I recall another definition:
In politics, when a presidential nominee has chosen but not announced his running mate, he wants a thorough check to be sure the mate's past has no hidden "embarrassing incidents" that might be revealed during the campaign. The searching scathing background-check is called "taking him behind the woodshed", or "woodshedding".

For example, as I recall: in 1968, after Senator Eagleton was announced, it was discovered that he had been treated for a nervous breakdown. The comment was that the Democrats given their candidate a proper woodshedding.

I think I recall another definition:
In politics, when a presidential nominee has chosen but not announced his running mate, he wants a thorough check to be sure the mate's past has no hidden "embarrassing incidents" that might be revealed during the campaign. The scathing background-check is called "taking him behind the woodshed", or "woodshedding".

For example, as I recall: in 1968, after Senator Eagleton was announced, it was discovered that he had been treated for a nervous breakdown. The comment was that the Democrats hadn't given their candidate a proper woodshedding.

two birds in hand beating bush:

1) woodshedding is first attested in the punishment sense. but to woodshed was coined in the musical sense!

1936 L. Armstrong Swing that Music 71 We used to practice together, ‘wood-shed’ as we say (from the old-time way of going out into the wood-shed to practice a new song). 1946 Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues viii. 108 I'll have to woodshed this thing awhile so I can get straight with you all. 1950 Blesh & Janis They all played Ragtime (1958) x. 203, I would hear the tunes and, to make sure, go home and ‘woodshed’ them in every key, put them in major and minor and all the ninth chords. 1968 A. Young in A. Chapman New Black Voices (1972) Drew's got an alto [horn].+ Drew dont hardly touch it, he too busy woodsheddin his drums. 1978 Amer. Speech 1975 L. 302 [Jargon of barber-shop singing.] Woodshed, work out the harmony parts (to a known melody) by ear; sing as a group for the first time+; improvise (an interpretation).

Hence "woodshedding" vbl. n., (a) the dispensing of punishment; (b) the practice or rehearsal of music; (c) spontaneous or improvised barber-shop singing.
1940 Amer. Speech XV. 205 Woodshedding, disciplinary action. 1946 Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues ix. 151 Instead of woodshedding, he went out after the big money with the primitive equipment he had when he started. 1955 Shapiro & Hentoff Hear me talkin' to Ya xi. 190 It was here that the term ‘woodshedding’ originated. When one of the gang wanted to rehearse his part, he would go off into the woods and practice. 1956 S. Longstreet Real Jazz xiii. 101 Bix [Beiderbecke] did plenty of woodshedding, playing alone, to some recording on the family Victrola. 1973 T. Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow i. 129 No head falsetto here but complete, out of the honest breast, a baritone voice brought over years of woodshedding up to this range. 1974 Harmonizer Jan.-Feb. 18/2 Woodshedding is not a ‘spectator sport’—only participants can fully enjoy it. 1976 Times 27 Sept. 12/4 Spontaneous barbershopping is known as woodshedding, because a woodshed is as good a place as any to burst into sudden song.

2. as I said, well nigh a year ago (or was it more), the baseball origin of southpaw certainly seems plausible. but there is that nasty citation* from 1848 to deal with.

1. A person's left hand. (In quot. 1848, a punch or blow with the left hand.) 1848 Democratic B-hoy, ‘I say, Lewy, give him a sockdologer!’ ‘Curse the Old Hoss, what a south-paw he has given me!’ 1885 Sporting Life 14 Jan. 4/3 They had always been accustomed to having their opponents hug their bases pretty close, out of respect for Morris' quick throw over to first with that south-paw of his. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §121/53 Southpaw, wrong hand or fist, the left hand or fist. 1948 Chicago Tribune 20 Apr. i. 20/5 He waved his big south~paw and ducked under the roof.

2. One who pitches or throws with the left hand; a left-handed person.
In Boxing, a southpaw leads with his right hand.
1891 Chicago Herald 24 July 6/1 The new south-paw+came to town yesterday. 1911 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 15 Apr. 8/5 Davis came up to bat.+ He faced the twirler right-handed. He always does with southpaws. 1932 Ring Apr. 5/2 McCoy was a slow southpaw who had proved just a good workout for Joe Chip. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §430/10 Left-handed person,+south-paw. 1947 J. Gunther Inside U.S.A. xl. 657 Ah won't even go to the Polo Grounds unless a southpaw's pitchin'. 1951 Sport 6–12 Apr. 8/2 On the same bill, Joe Lucy, the young southpaw, meets South African lightweight Gerald Dreyer. 1955 Sci. News Let. 14 May 310/2 The family cat may have a preferred paw+, and pussy is most often a southpaw when she is not ambidextrous. 1959 Sunday Times 8 Nov. 32/6 In the ball parks all over the United States the so-called ‘diamond’, formed by the track between the bases, is always oriented to the same points of the compass, so that in whatever park a team is playing the pitcher on his mound will always have his right hand on the north side of his body; hence a left-hander is a ‘southpaw’. 1967 Boston Sunday Herald 26 Mar. ii. 7/1 Rocket Rod Laver leads the greatest tennis show on earth into Boston Garden Monday night.+ The freckle-faced southpaw is the top-seeded player. 1970 H. McLeave Question of Negligence (1973) vi. 48 ‘Nobody told me he was a southpaw.’ Even the psychiatrist had+forgotten that the surgeon cut with his left hand. 1976 Billings (Montana) Gaz. 26 June 1-b/2 The 6–0 lefthander, the only southpaw listed on the Angels' roster, struck out six and walked the same number. 1976 ‘A. Burgess’ Beard's Roman Women (1977) v. 110 Donatella, a south~paw, animated this [sc. her left shoulder-blade] while lifting the one remaining chair from the front room. 1978 M. Kenyon Deep Pocket ix. 103 He wore shorts and boxing gloves. ‘'E's a southpaw,’ Peckover said.

3. attrib. or as adj. Left-handed; also transf., left-footed, and fig.
1891 Cricket 29 Oct. 463/1 The Germantown man returned the ball like a flash to the wicket, and the ‘south-paw’ batsman was run out. 1932 J. T. Farrell Young Lonigan iii. 126 It was swell for Studs to play,+knowing he had made that good kick,+to run back and pick one of Helen's southpaw kicks out of the air. 1949 Sun (Baltimore) 3 June 18/8 They would have been bunched against southpaw pitching. 1957 R. Watson-Watt Three Steps to Victory xliii. 245 This was, however, a south-paw kind of compliment. 1969 New Scientist 6 Nov. 277/2 Jack Bodell has just become the first south~paw heavyweight champion in British boxing history.


*http://loc.harpweek.com/LCPoliticalCartoons/IndexDisplayCartoonMedium.asp?SourceIndex-
=People&IndexText=Cass,%20Lewis&UniqueID=80&Year=1848