Whoops
I have not gratuitously insulted you or anybody else on this forum - I tend to try and give as good as I get, you are case in point
Without any former rancour, even argument, you responded a point I put up by sweeping it aside as starry-eyed romanticism - that is when I first encountered your technique in dealing with something you didn't agree with
There followed a period of arrogant condescension and, when you found yourself unable to aoid the points I was making, a list of feeble excuses like "hack didn't really mean bad", or seagoing and farm-working hacks, or hard pressed broadside writers taking time out to study newspapers to familiarise themselves with vernacular terms or trade practices or nautical and farm equipment - all on past threads.
Then we had Child changing his mind about broadsides and realising they were not that bad after all.....
Finally, you insisted we take our differences off line where your poured vitriolic abuse and adequate displayed you ignorance and sometimes antipathy of folk songs.
This isn't scholarship Steve; it's the agenda driving that you accuse Sharp of - you appear to need working people never to have made songs - and you accuse me of having a political agenda!!
I am not surprised you find Harker's research excellent
Harker compiled a hit list of every researcher he could lay hands on, denigrated their work and insulted them as individuals - you seem to have learned well from his technique
I feel somewhat flattered to be included in your similar list along with Child and Sharp
I invite you once again to respond to my points - if you do, I have possibly been put on the right path, if you don't, you have made my point for me
Win-win as far as I'm concerned
Is this really how you think a serious researcher behaves?
Jim Carroll