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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Stephen R. Book Question: Hugill: Sea Shanties (24) RE: Book Question: Hugill: Sea Shanties 10 Jul 05


Whether the shanty men / shanty boy thing is a lucky accident with unrelated homonyms or a reunion of different senses of a single word will depend on where you stand on the etymology of the nautical "shanty." In any case it points to a certain overlap between sea songs (mostly forebitters rather than shanties) and lumber camp songs. Used to be that winter was a slack time for sailors, with little work at sea, so a lot of them would sign on as loggers for the season and go back to sea when it turned and demand for sailors went back up. This resulted in some exchange of repertory; the lumber camp repertory includes some sea songs and the fo'c's'le heard some songs learned from loggers. In a title such as "Shanties and Sailors' Songs" "Sea Shanties" would be redudant anyhow, since no one speaks of "land shanties."

Stephen


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