A couple of points.

Hugill wasn't the only one who cleaned up his collected material; virtually every collector in the last three centuries did the same. As a woman friend of mine observed, whenever women get together to sing, the most popular songs wouldn't be sung in mixed company - so why aren't there more of this type of song recorded in the tradition? The answer is probably that informants didn't think them proper to sing to collectors (particularly women to male collectors and vice versa), and when they were found they were bowdlerized for printing.

And shanties are certainly "prettied up". At Mystic this year, a group of Breton singers performed some traditional shanties and some other work songs they'd collected themselves. My companion objected to me that their presentation was monotonous; they sang the choruses in unison, with no harmony. I had to remind her (at least, I *hope* she'd have realized it if she'd thought about it, since she's been a folkie for 40 years) that that's the way they were sung!

We pick up the tempo, line them out in rhythm, and chime in with 6-part harmony, but that's a totally contemporary and non-traditional presentation completely at odds with their actual use. Onboard ship, they were lucky if half the people could carry the tune, and no one cared. When you're on a slippery wet deck busting your ass to try to get that last foot on the main t'gallant in the cold and rain, nobody's worried about the music, they're worried about getting enough people pulling together at just the right time to finish the job and be able to let go the damn rope!