A grade 10 student of mine last year suggested that the young man had not deliberately "slighted" Barbara Allen; rather, he was too shy to toast her because of his love for her, and she misinterpreted this as a slight. Needless to say, I join enthusiastically in the group contempt for this thoroughly contemptible young man.

Continuing on the theme of misinterpretation, I only recently heard the version in which Barb laughs at the corpse - my take on it is that she was shocked and distraught, and this expressed itself in a kind of hysterical, thoroughly-inappropriate manner: laughter. This was taken of course as evidence of her hard-heartedness. (See what I mean about the theme of misinterpretation ... !).

On another note: I have a thoroughy academic interest in sex. Here's another bit of text that needs some interpretation: "This explanation fits the history of the sexual pattern in recent times in the English-speaking world." That's from Lomax/Kennedy, above. What the heck is it supposed to mean?