Q, I have believed for some time that you are a fundamentalist who worships at the feet of a few long dead White collectors of Black [and non-Black] folkloric material. May those collectors rest in peace. And I mean no disrespect to them or to you.

And by the way, Q, I've learned a lot from you since you invited me to check out Mudcat almost five years ago. But-unlike you-I prefer to keep an open mind when I'm thinking about old subjects and about new (to me as well as well as really new) subjects.

**

...Azizi researching the etymology of "dou dou," I think mainly because she is secretly a 19th century German philologist
-Gibb

Gibb, that was in another life, not this one. :o)

So Gibb, I'm asking you the same question that I asked Q in my post dated 11 Mar 09 - 10:49 PM. Is your answer the same as his?

Do you also think that exploring possibilities about old subjects is anathema, even when there is old and contemporary information that appears to suggest that the new way of thinking about something old might be valid, at least some of the time?

As I wrote in my 11 Mar 09 - 04:40 PM post to this thread, I think that we may never really know what the phrase "do do" meant in this particular song or what it meant in other songs from those times. I will amend that sentence to "We may never really know what "do do" always meant or usually meant in that particular song and in other similar songs of that time.

I'm definitely not proselytizing that the phrase "dou dou" should always or even should sometimes replace the phrase "do do" or "do let" or the word "doodle" in those shanteys that were lucky enough to have been collected way back then and be available now for all of us to enjoy and to pontificate about their meanings.

I hold to my position that there is a possibility that these sailors who were Hugill's informants could have meant the phrase "dou dou" or those sailors could have misheard that phrase. I also believe that Hugill's informants could been misinformed about all of the lyrics to that song. Hugill's informants could also have been jivin Mr. Charley. But I'll leave that possibility aside.

That's all I'm sayin about this matter.

-Azizi,
who-in this life-had a Bajan maternal grandmother and a Trinidadian maternal grandfather (May they also rest in peace.)