The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #125224 Message #3591490
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
12-Jan-14 - 07:14 PM
Thread Name: Shanty or Chantey?
Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
I have drafted a chapter on this topic for a book I'm working on ... which is sorely behind schedule (but I'm doing as much as I can!)...
Anyway, to summarize:
1. As we all know, a variety of spellings are found in 19th century accounts.
2. Precursors of "chanty man" and "chant" come in Nordhoff 1855. I am of the opinion that "chantyman" may well have come before "chanty." The argument for that is complicated, however.
3. Clark's "chanty" comes first in publication (1867), followed by "shanty" in _Once a Week_ article of 1868...an article that is mostly plagiarized or rehashed in _Chambers's Journal_ of 1869. The latter was Oxford Dictionary's "earliest appearance" for the term, rather than Clark.
4. Though the spellings were various, ones with "ch" were more common in 19th c. sources, and this was generally the received spelling then used by early 20th c. folklorists (mainly British).
5. A few influential non-academic writers of the early 20th c., also mainly British, were uncomfortable with the "ch" spelling and advocated for "sh" in spite of common use. These include: Whall (1910), Terry (1915), C. Fox Smith (1920s). The American Colcord, who took a lot of influence from Terry, followed suit.
Their reasons:
5A. The term needed to be 'spelt as pronounced' (i.e. from a specific lingocentric view).
5B. The "ch" spelling was too evocative of French for some British writers. It suggested the popular French derivation of the term, which they thought was popular nonsense, and which they rejected because they could not fathom what they believed to be the implication of a French derivation: that English sailors got chanties from French sailors. (In my own belief, the possibility of a French derivation owes to French Creole, from the stevedores in the U.S. South.)
6. Britain's Oxford dictionary kept "sh" as the preference due to its 1869 Chambers's Journal reference, and USA's Webster's kept "ch," perhaps due to that being the actually dominant "in use" spelling at the time.
7. The works of the above-named reformers, particularly Whall (less so), Terry, and Colcord, were far and above the most influential in chanty literature of the first half of the 20th c. They were basis of early revivals and much other discourse on the topic, popular recordings, etc. Doerflinger and Hugill - the final seals on the chanty collection cannon - inherited this discourse. Hence "sh" is now the most common spelling globally, while many in USA hold onto the tradition of "ch" that predates the reform and was used by people involved with our library institutions (like RW Gordon, JM Carpenter, Alan Lomax).