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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 :)



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#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?



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#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


berdonmill
#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.



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#12828 12/16/00 11:11 AM
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Our friend Faldage mentions Louisville Lou.

Any kin to our friend Jackie?


#12829 12/16/00 01:17 PM
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In reply to:

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


Yes, I vaguely remember Sunlight Soap, but haven't seen it for a long time. The unofficial version of the carol, we had was:

While shepherds washed their socks by night
all seated round the tub
an angel of the Lord came down
and soapsuds flew around.

Bingley



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#12830 12/16/00 06:32 PM
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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.

Nowadays when a group of people gather -- be it at The Pops for Christmas or anywhere else -- you can generally tell the old-time RCs from the post-John XXIII RCs and Protestants by whether the singer uses the Latin or the English lyric. Or so I've found. Sine I am generally bad at Latin I use Adeste to bulk up my credentials and sing it in Latin!
Do they even teach the Latin lyrics outside of formal choral settings?
wow


#12831 12/16/00 08:19 PM
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WOW comments: . Sine I am generally bad at Latin I use Adeste to bulk up my credentials and sing it in Latin!

Well, although you didn't use it in a place I would expect either syntactically or semantically, you have left me with the (Latin) impression that you are without something, super-Mom. Was that to reinforce your lack of Latin?



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#12832 12/17/00 02:41 PM
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I don't believe I didn't catch that! It was, of course, supposed to be since not sine! When I read it today, I cringed because I knew I'd get caught. Leave it to Capital Kiwi ... he's sine qua non for Latin!
wow


#12833 12/18/00 09:52 AM
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Sunlight soap was pretty big in India (at least it used to be). So successful was it that they extended the brand to washing powder as well. Lever Brothers?


#12834 12/18/00 11:39 AM
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Lever Brothers?

Right on!



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#12835 12/18/00 11:50 PM
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My close friend Marcia Cohen regaled us with:
Deck the halls with motzah balls,
Santa Claus is Uncle Sol....
Wish I could remember the rest...it was 1949!
Merry Merry!
wow


#12836 12/19/00 05:12 AM
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According to Dom John Stephan in "Adeste fidelis: a study of its origin and development" (1947) this hymn was likely written by John Francis Wade. Wade was a Roman Catholic layman who copied plainchant for a living. The best guess for the date of its composition is 1740-3.


#12837 12/19/00 07:47 AM
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WOW said I don't believe I didn't catch that!

WOW, I wasn't really picking on you. Since you were claiming (in the same sentence) that you knew little Latin, your typo just seemed too good to pass up. I doubt very much if I'm the sine qua non on anything. I'm just a traveller really. Or as one of my colleagues formerly from China calls me, a "capitalist roader".



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#12838 12/19/00 08:19 AM
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In reply to:

There's something about Xmas that brings out the bad composer in a lot of New Zealand advertising copywriters.


Aah, but Xmas also gave us John Clark's "We Three Kings":

We three kings of Orient are
One on a tractor, two in a car
One on a scooter
Tooting his hooter
Following yonder star
Oh, oh
Star of wonder
Star of light
Star of bewdy, she'll be right
Star of glory, that's the story
Following yonder star . .. "

A true Antipodean anthem!



#12839 12/19/00 09:38 AM
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A true Antipodean anthem!

Truly Antipodean, Max, in that it is an extended variation of something British. (run and duck for cover emoticon!) I grew up with all of that except the 'Star of bewdy, she'll be right' line.


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I have somewhere on tape "A child's Christmas in Warrnambool" by John Clarke. [Warrnambool is a country town in the Australian state of Victoria]. I'll have to find the tape before Christmas and enjoy it again.


#12841 12/19/00 11:10 AM
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The Sunlight soap parody occurs in the Molesworth books, 1950s Britain.


#12842 12/19/00 03:40 PM
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In reply to:

We Three Kings


One of my sons, ca. age 6, asked, "If the kings were from Orey and Tar, how come there were three instead of two?"


#12843 12/19/00 04:00 PM
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"If the kings were from Orey and Tar, how come there were three instead of two?"

Two must have come from one place, else how could we have,
"We three kings from Orey and Tar,
One on a scooter and two in a car" ??

This doesn't help us to establish which country had a dual monarchy, though.




#12844 12/19/00 04:04 PM
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Lever Brothers?


Port Sunlight, Lord Leverholme's worker's estate, which is on the Mersey opposite Liverpool, is a "Heritage Centre" these days.


#12845 12/19/00 04:39 PM
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a dual monarchy

Thanks, Rhu - I never did understand the meaning of Duchy before this!


#12846 12/20/00 08:27 AM
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This doesn't help us to establish which country had a dual monarchy, though.

Maybe either Tar or Orey should have been the WTO.



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#12847 12/20/00 09:29 AM
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I didn't get it:
This doesn't help us to establish which country had a dual monarchy, though.

Maybe either Tar or Orey should have been the WTO.

Maybe you are saying that somewhere there was something similar to Bush vs Gore election?
Emanuela


#12848 12/20/00 01:50 PM
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>should have been the WTO

World Trade Organization?
We'll Take Over??
Word's Tyranny Overcomes?!
what?


#12849 12/20/00 02:20 PM
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In my family, there's a tradition: stand a tree branch, maybe a foot long, in a holder and tie a red ribbon to it to make it festive. Hang an old gun shell from one of the twigs. You have just created "a cartridge in a bare tree."

(I, in the tradition of Voltaire, would rather hang a pen cartridge but whatchagunna do - we have a deer hunter in the family)


#12850 12/20/00 02:41 PM
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My brother is an over the road truck driver. He told me that over the weekend he was driving through rural Georgia where he noticed a community creche scene in front of the city hall of some small city. The three wise men were dressed in firefighters' turnout gear, coats, helmets, boots, and airpacks on their backs. Bob, being the curious sort, stopped at the local Piggly Wiggly and asked what was going on with the creche scene.

The woman behind the counter glared at him and said, "You northerners don't read your bibles very much, do you?"

Bob responded that he was a lay minister but had never heard that the Wise Men had such noble occupations. The woman retorted, "Hmmmph, it says right there in the Bible that the three wise men came from a fahr!"




TEd
#12851 12/21/00 12:17 AM
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Capital Kiwi: one of my colleagues formerly from China calls me, a "capitalist roader".
Dear Cap, Maybe your alternate handle could be CapRunningDog.
wow




#12852 12/21/00 01:12 AM
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… and in today's Melbourne Age, cartoonist and poet
Michael Leunig gives us this version:

While shepherds washed their socks by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And no one looked around.




#12853 12/21/00 01:58 AM
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WOW suggests: Capital Kiwi: one of my colleagues formerly from China calls me, a "capitalist roader".
Dear Cap, Maybe your alternate handle could be CapRunningDog.
wow


I won't suggest it to her. She has a wicked sense of humour and a very, very good grasp of English idiom, considering it's her second language ...



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#12854 12/21/00 02:02 AM
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tsuwm hints:
should have been the WTO

World Trade Organization?
We'll Take Over??
Word's Tyranny Overcomes?!
what?


World Trade Organisation. The 4-year chairmanship position was up for a new appointment. One bloc favoured Mike Moore from NZ, the other bloc favoured a Thai gentleman whose name eludes me. So a compromise was reached - they do two years each.



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#12855 12/22/00 09:26 PM
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Good King Saurkraut look out!
On yo' feets uneven,
While the snoo lay round and bout,
Ragged and uneven.


#12856 12/26/00 08:08 PM
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Going low-brow here...
Actually this is one we used to sing on the monkey bars in elementary school...

We three kings
Of oil and tar
Tried to smoke
A rubber cigar
It was loaded
And exploded
Now there are only two
Ooooooo
We two kings... etc.

As I recall, the song ends with the rerain
Siii-ilent Niiight.

It was damned funny to we third graders!


#12857 12/27/00 01:05 PM
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Is this why there is only solomente one Doug?

But of course, es solamente, mea culpa, Monsieur Doug a bit of a quadralingual correction


#12858 12/27/00 01:35 PM
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Quite possibly. And did I misspell Solamente/Solomente?
Had to check to see if I misspelled misspell.


#12859 12/27/00 04:41 PM
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es solamente.


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