The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #125224   Message #3661182
Posted By: Airymouse
17-Sep-14 - 09:35 AM
Thread Name: Shanty or Chantey?
Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
You guys are way over my head, but here are a few random thoughts:
I've heard "chaps" (the leather kind) called "shaps". Somebody above used the word "schism". That word has a really hard ch (to pronounce) because it's silent. "Schism" gives history buffs fits, but luckily they seem to be able to handle the silent ch in "fuchsia." Finger's book of songs collected in 1897 is called "Sailor Chanties and Cowboy Songs." "Welsh rarebit" like "Jaws Harp" goes back centuries, but my favorite entry in Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary is,
RAREBIT, n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it must be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-the-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau a la financiere is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.