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#12818 12/14/00 05:28 PM
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Since we're into the Christmas season, let me quote one of my favorite carols:

Deck the halls with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla Wash and Kalamazoo.
Norah's freezin' on the trolley;
Swaller dollar cauliflower, ally-garoo!

How many of you can identify that?

Here's another:

Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes,
Venite, venite in Bethleem.
Natum videte, regem angelorum,
Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus dominum.

Do you know in what century this was written?


#12819 12/15/00 12:07 AM
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The walla-walla-wash part reminds me of the story A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur`s Court (Twain). He did a whole song and dance with walla-walla-washington to bring on an eclipse I believe.


#12820 12/15/00 10:17 AM
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Somehow I'm instantly reminded of

"While shepherds washed their socks by night … "

Must be all this frankincense stuff.


#12821 12/15/00 12:07 PM
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>Must be all this frankincense stuff.

I will demur from making a bad pun. Of course bad pun is one of the basic oxymorons :)



TEd
#12822 12/15/00 05:33 PM
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Bob y b blurts out: Deck the halls with Boston Charlie,

Umm, for starters it's:
Deck us all with Boston Charlie.

It continues:

Don't we know archaic barrel?
Lullaby, lillyboy, Louisville Lou.
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola-boola, Pensacoola Hullaballoo.

And a parsnip in a pantry.


#12823 12/15/00 06:19 PM
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In reply to:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie


I don't remember that wording, but you could well be correct, and probably are. How long has it been (30 years?) since Albert and Pogo used to dance around singing that?

So far, no takers on Adeste Fideles. Those are, of course, the Latin words to "O Come All Ye Faithful", which everyone I know assumes to be a medieval hymn, since it was originally written in Latin. Actually, it was written sometime between 1730 and 1750 by a music stationer (whose name I forgot) at the English college at Douai, France. The Tractarians first introduced it to England in the 1830's, but it never caught on in Protestant churches until the 1880's because of its Catholic origins.


#12824 12/15/00 06:22 PM
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There's something about Xmas that brings out the bad composer in a lot of New Zealand advertising copywriters.

This year, so far, I've heard three rewrites of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" advertising godknowswhat, and one rather good one written by the staff of a consumer affairs programme on TV which pilloried all the shonky commercial people they'd dealt with and to during the year.

paulb's excerpt from "while shepherds washed their socks by night" made me think about the old kid's ripoff of the all-time favourite carol. I'll quote it in full:

While shepherds washed their socks by night
All seated round the tub,
A bar of Sunlight Soap came down
And they began to scrub.


Does the Sunlight Soap reference mean anything to those of us not of the antipodean persuasion?



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#12825 12/15/00 07:26 PM
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Don't you know Archiaic Barrel
Swaller dollar cauliflower, ally garoo.

Walt Kelly, c. 1956

berdonmill


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#12826 12/15/00 08:11 PM
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Or:

Bark us all bow-wows of folly

Or

Duck us all in Bowls of Barley

Or

.
.
.

I still read my Pogo books. There is a new series from Fantagraphics Books that is replaying the daily strips which would be a little redundant since I have all the dailies that they have printed so far in other books but they have someone who not only understands what Pogo was about but gives some historical perspective.

This site:(http://www.nauticom.net/www/chuckm/bark.htm) has almost all the known lyrics to Deck us All. They left out at least the version from Prehysterical Pogo in Pandemonia


#12827 12/16/00 12:36 AM
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BYB commented: So far, no takers on Adeste Fideles. Those are, of course, the Latin words to "O Come All Ye Faithful", which everyone I know assumes to be a medieval hymn, since it was originally written in Latin.

I think most of us old Latin hammerers understood that. Your question, though, was when it was written. I knew it was fairly recent, but I had no idea exactly when it was composed, or by whom. I vaguely remember reading about it somewhere ... somewhen.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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