Dear Folks,

I was re-reading some old threads and a couple of them suggested a useful idea. Over time, or geographical and cultural "travel," as meanings change, or lose historical connection for the current generation of singers, folk music lyrics sometimes "drift." That is, when the tension created by having fewer and fewer hearers understand a word or phrase well enough to get the sense of it, changes are made to accomodate the times. Suppose we collected as many of these discarded words/phrases, (with glosses), as possible in this thread? It could be both informative and entertaining, doncha think? (Forgive me if someone else has attempted to gather a substantial number of these in one thread.)

I'll start:

In the children's song, "This Old Man," I have sometimes heard substitutions for "Pate" ("head", a word unfamiliar to children in the U.S. for at least a couple of generations, now.

In a thread on the "Blue Ridge Mountain Blues," we discussed the probable substitution of the name "Gray," for a dog, whose likely original moniker was "Trey." Few persons unacquainted with hounds would understand what was lost in this substitution.

In a thread on "Loch Lomond" I had my misunderstanding of the word "greetin'" corrected: it means "crying" or "grieving" in Scots. I had never heard the original version of the song -- Perhaps there were substitute lyrics introduced when it left Scotland.

I know more of these, but that's a start. Some of these "drifts" have arisen for reasons that take a nice comic turn in the telling. Anyone else want to share a few?

Shalom,

Shula