English Folk - Peasants to Professors

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Banjiman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 04:23 PM

Barbara,

I think you have hit on a really interesting question around the best way to introduce songs that probably deserves a seperate, sensible thread..... fancy starting one?

Paul

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: BB
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:46 PM

I'm seriously wondering whether I dare jump in here, but someone way up there on this thread (I think it was Glueman, but I can't now find it) said that they never use more than ten words to introduce a song.

I find that very sad. I'm not suggesting lectures, but conversationally toned intros. just putting songs in context is surely going to enhance an audience's enjoyment of the songs. Obviously too one picks where one does that - i.e. it needs to be somewhere where the audience is actually quiet enough to listen to the intros. - a (folk) club, concert or village hall - not a pub gig or anywhere where the audience couldn't give a damn.

And this doesn't just apply to 'folkie' audiences - it's been my experience in village hall gigs with not a folk enthusiast in sight. In fact, those are the very people who sometimes need the songs put in context, because they're not used to the genre, and it helps them to understand where these 'strange' songs are coming from.

And how do I know what they think? - because they've come and told me afterwards how much they've enjoyed the fact that we do tell them something about the songs - sometimes with the words, 'I didn't think I liked folk music, but ...'

No, introductions are not for all people, circumstances or venues, but they have their place, and with skilled introductions can make a real difference to people's perceptions.

Barbara

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:34 PM

Time and again Lizzie starts threads purely with the intention of provoking a response or winding people up. She knows exactly what she's doing.

Time and again decent people who should know better fall for her game hook, line and sinker and contribute to escalating a minor irritation into a major event.

Time and again eminently sensible people like Joe Offer and Big Mick implore us to ignore provocative threads and refuse to rise to the bait.

Yet here we are up to 180-odd posts on the back of a few lines of nonsense!

Can I please, please implore that we let our better natures triumph and greet future threads like this with the silence they deserve? PLEASE...

That's all I have to say on the matter. Don't tell me any of you are actually enjoying this?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:25 PM

"I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini. "

Now that's downright cruel - especially if you wear the furry side inside.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM

telling someone their opinion is 'bollocks',

Since I was probably the first person to say on this thread that what she wrote was bollocks. would you be kind enough to place that into context?

In this and other threads Lizzie has made unsubstantiated statement after unsubstantiated statement about folk music. She has a history of it. She does it on the basis of non-existent evidence. This thread started with her "impression". She is perfectly entitled to her "impressions" but to publish them on a board like this which is for discussion of a particular genre of music I would have thought needs a certain amount of "rigour".

Here she is as the OP:

"I get the impression that Kate is regarded poorly by The Traditionalists because she dares to change the songs around, chop bits out here and there, add other bits.

Evidence for this impression? None.

I know of no-one else who says this about anyone who does that to songsMost singers do it with traditional songs. It makes them singable. I showed Lizzie where this was done with a couple of well-known books.

I also pointed out to Lizzie that the EFDSS magazine runs a feature about this and quoted a current example.

And I don't know who these "traditionalists" are. It is after all a name she has made up. I don't know who the Professors are either. She made a post about me being a member of the "Folk Police" on another board that was frankly libellous. It was taken down when I complained.

So what she writes is round spherical objects – unless she can back it up with evidence.

Here she is again:

"What I'm trying to say is that many people are put OFF the songs that once used to belong to them because of how serious it's all become."

Is she personally put off the songs? Actually no, she isn't – she tells us that constantly. So who are these "many people? I don't know and whilst I have never particularly looked for them I have never come across anyone who says anything remotely like that.

Round spherical objects again.

You could do this with virtually every single post she makes.

It isn't that she has opinions that people I and others disagree with. It is that she has opinions that are generally demonstrably wrong. What people do is point this out.

Or to put it another way, she talks bollocks.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:58 PM

Backwoodsman, go back through the thread. Read my contributions again. Then read those by others. There was abuse, there was name-calling. It wasn't by me. That's a presumption you've made.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:54 PM

I've always understood that 'from the singing of.....' is intended to imply that, whilst the song was learned from the performance(s), either face-to-face or recorded, of a given artist, the artist was not the composer, or the composer is anon.

I could well be wrong - I appear to be wrong about most things at the moment. :-)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:51 PM

Oh, and in case any other dimshits have not got it the point of my "arrest warrant" thread is to demonstrate that knowing the difference between folk music and other types does not prevent enjoyment of the other types, nor does it inhibit the folk process.

Indeed not - pedantry in all things however so benign the eclecticism. It's no less than we've come to expect. English folk - peasants to pedants...

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:49 PM

most of their songs were "from the singing of" - in my naivety I assumed that they had indeed learnt them face to face, but further research revealed that they could only have learnt them from records.

If you learn a song from a recording - alter it, add or subtract some verses and you feel you ought to credit it to the source you started it from - what form of words could you use? Perhaps you don't feel it necessary to do so, and there is no problem with that. I think it is a generally recognised convention within folk music. I may be wrong.

"From the singing of....." sounds OK to me. It means I learnt it from a record - usually - but I may have altered it.

"I learnt this from....." implies face-to-face a totally different meaning.

Undoubtedly some people mix these up and interchange them. I can live with that.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:48 PM

I've explained myself. Understand or don't understand. Your choice, not my problem.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:46 PM

"(and I do have a bit of a string of publications to my name)"

Post of the Month?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:39 PM

Oh, hurrah! Sanctimony R Us! Talk about predictable - it's the Lincolnshire Heavy Mob!

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Banjiman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:32 PM

What Backwoodsman said at 12:16 PM. I'm with that.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:27 PM

"of my "arrest warrant" thread " which despite my great sense of humour, really isn't very funny.
and now I've wasted far too much time on this...time to plan an actual gig rather than talk up one..ahhh..busy busy!

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:23 PM

"I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini."

I love it! :0)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:22 PM

Oh, and in case any other dimshits have not got it the point of my "arrest warrant" thread is to demonstrate that knowing the difference between folk music and other types does not prevent enjoyment of the other types, nor does it inhibit the folk process.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:20 PM

Rifleman, Gg spouts gibberish. The way to show it is gibberish is to take it apart. Your problem?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:18 PM

It would appear that the OP has achieved her objective.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:16 PM

Ruth, some of us read to learn. A lot of what I read is informative (much of it from both you and Princess D, AIH). That we don't post is not what matters, it's the content of what we read that's important. And much of the content of this and certain other threads is not by any stretch of the imagination 'discussion', intellectual or otherwise, it is simply public provocation, ranting and insult-hurling.

I'm fully aware that there are things 'going on' - it's deplorable that individuals feel the need to poke others with sharp sticks - I'm not taking sides, just asking those who want a punch-up to do it elsewhere so that those of us who want to read, learn, discuss, whatever, can do itb without the distraction of fishwifery and schoolgirl antics.

You, and others, give your opinions on this forum frequently, robustly and, at times, abrasively. It's equally my right to do the same. My comments aren't made in order to poke you or anyone else with another sharp stick. They are simply a request for order - made to everyone involved in this unseemly, petulant brou-ha-ha.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:16 PM

I'm neither middle-class nor a graduate, I'm a fresh enthusiast who sings and thinks that the history adds interest - and indeed respect to the songs originators. If it doesn't add interest for someone else, there's no reason to sweat it? No-one's forcing anyone to write a thesis. I don't know a lot about the songs I sing to be honest - I check out some of the information available and store the bits that interest me away, much gets lost too (but like Lizzie, I'm not a walking archive either). But where I do read stuff about them, I like to know it's at least right. And I don't expect a lengthy lecture at a singing session either. Though some brief conversational intro's are indeed most engaging. I do however think, that professional recording artists have a degree of responsibility, to ensure that they get whatever historical facts they choose to publish about the songs they record, as up to date as possible (because the public will trust it's correct). Same care shown with key details as you would any piece of publishing surely? Mistakes will of course always be made, but that's not a very good excuse for willfully perpetuating them IMO, or indeed abandoning the history altogether as irrelevant. I don't know where Lizzies's coming from in her assertions that 'professors stole it off the peasants'. This entire thread seems daft - maybe they're a nicer bunch now? There's an argument being made out of no argument, or so it seems to me! Like I said, Lizzie's style makes me bloody laugh sometimes. Though I do wish she could back off the academic bashing. I don't see what her justifications really are, except that they can be grumpy old men at times - though usually amongst themselves. Then again, that makes me laugh too...
What is this thread all about? I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:14 PM

Does this post accept 'guest' posters?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:12 PM

"If you disagree, take it up with the management."

Joe Offer doesn't get involved as you know on the not unreasonable basis that folkies 'eat their young.' Others provide the place settings and cutlery.

"People who only participate in a discussion to tell off the participants can be particularly tedious and smug."

Indeed.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:02 PM

Mudcat is apparently all about free speech. Don't like it, don't read it is the credo these days. People who only participate in a discussion to tell off the participants can be particularly tedious and smug. IMHO, of course.

I feel all of my responses in this thread have been perfectly measured and appropriate, which is more than I can say about the recent discussions in which the OP repeatedly attempted to put the boot into the festival where I work and an organisation with which I am associated. Yeah, you're right - it fuckin' stinks.

If you disagree, take it up with the management.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:01 PM

WTF?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:00 PM

I'm not going to argue with you, my late mother always said never to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. It seems to me that you enjoy calling other people pretentious, but when the role is reversed, you can't deal with it.

There's a fairly old saying I'm familiar with...if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:53 AM

Ruth, you and Princess Di are pissed-off with LC - I understand that. But the value of much of the real discussion has been detracted from by the hysterics and personal insults (both ways), which have no place here.

If people dislike one anther, fine. I understand that too - I'm not stupid and I've seen the stuff on other threads (and I've defended you when you were being attacked recently). But take the shrieking and rowing behind the bike-shed and slug it out there, in private.

Please ladies.

And yes Diane, don't bother. I know you're not a lady.

10-4 Good buddies.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:50 AM

See above.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:48 AM

Gg, the first thing you learn in legal writing (and I do have a bit of a string of publications to my name) is that it is wise not to write things that are meaningless. The second is to try to be sure that what you have written means what you intended. You seem to fail on both counts.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:48 AM

Business as usual in the ossuary then. Onedownmanship, the unplumbed depths of human nature over old songs with a side order of vanity and delirium tremens.
Not very edifying this folk business.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:47 AM

It's schoolgirl playground stuff Diane.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

Backwoodsman, this thread was never going to be "an interesting discussion" because it was started in a spirit of shit-stirring. Plus ca change.

I found your abrasive and confrontational post equally depressing. So I guess we're even.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

I see Richard Bridge is indulging in his epic length pretentiousness AGAIN! (Cecil B. DeMille must be so proud*LOL*)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:37 AM

It wouldn't have mattered who "jumped in".
You were deliberately misrepresenting what large numbers of people, in threads passim over long weary time, have said.
Not clever and not funny, nor peasant-like nor professorial.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:36 AM

"I have a problem being told that I should get on and read those books...go into the history of it all, over and again,"

Lizzie, I'm genuinely confused here. Who is telling you to do this? People have sometimes suggested to me that I might be interested in finding out more about the folk songs I love and I've been more than happy to follow this up as research of this sort is something I find ejoyable and interesting. No-one has ever told me that I can't enjoy the music without doing this research.

I don't think it's helpful to create artificial antagonisms by suggesting there are two extremes of peasants and professors. Neither of these exists in reality and, even if they did, there would be more common ground than antithesis. The head and the heart cannot exist in isolation.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:32 AM

I don't flounce, nor dance in front of Boysies...although.....maybe that's where I've been going wrong! ;0) You'll not part me from my glitter though, no way. Maybe I should dance in front of those Shropshire Bedlam Boysies this year....Hmmmm... :0)

I'm listening to Chris Smither at the moment, with the Waves of Sidmouth as his backing singers (see Chris's thread). Just wonderful. :0)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:28 AM

I didn't name names.
Deliberately.
I wanted to see who would jump straight in.
I was neither surprised, nor disappointed.
Some people can't help themselves.
Shame.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:28 AM

The Professors feel they're not doing it in the correct way.

And just who ARE these nameless "Professors" you so much enjoy insulting?

I think there have been only two paid academics mentioned on this thread (or others you've posted to today): Georges Denis Zimmermann and Roy Palmer. Why do you hate them so much?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:22 AM

I thought you were busy polishing your popularist credentials elsewhere Bridge, Pugwash sings the blues or somesuch cods head. Not pretending you had an intellectual thought to bless yourself with. Stick to the back room of pubs and an anaesthetic of choice, eh?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:17 AM

"perceived through the historically valorised position of its enthusuasts to the detriment of other readings"

Let's just have a little look at the meaning of that pretentious phrase shall we?

Hmm. "Historically valorised" - does that mean "factually researched and agreed on the basis of evidence"? If not, then what does it mean?

If it means what it appears to mean then what are "other readings" - unless they are lies, errors, ignorance or fantasy?



Oh, and let's also have a look at "contains a dominant ideology that proscribes ways of consuming the music".    It would I think be quite hard to find a "dominant" perspective on "folk" music (whether 1954 or otherwise). The word "ideology" itself is used in many ways. Literally it means the study of ideas - which is of course what Lizzie states herself to reject - but it may also mean an accepted set or system of beliefs (implicitly within a defined grouping).   It would be hard I think to justify the idea that the opinion of some that knowledge of the history of song is generally accepted across either "horse folk" or "1954 folk", or indeed "sounds like folk to me" groupings. More pointedly, the idea that any such acceptance by any such group "proscribes" (ie prohibits or bans) any ways of enjoying the music. And indeed what is the point of saying "consume"? It obscures the inherent falseness of what Gg says. If you break it down, what might "consume" mean in this sense (since it cannot mean "use up and destroy", as in "consume a meal" or in "consume the world's resources"? It probably means (a) listen to or (b) buy recordings of or (increasingly in the record industry) "pay for". But if those are the meanings intended, then it becomes very plain that no such "consumption" is "proscribed".



"many as academically respectable as an historical reading" - well, assuming that an historical reading (ooh, that "an historical" is as pretentious a piece of pedantry as I've seen in a while, assuming everyone knows about Greek rough and smooth breathings) is a pretty breathtaking piece of smoothing over a gap. What are those other things? Why are they academically respectable?


In short, Gg is spouting as much gibberish as: (a) he usually does; and (b) Lizzie does; although he is covering it up with more flummery.






On a different tack, I would have thought that "from the singing of" is generally understood to mean something quite different from "taught to me by" or "learned (or "got") by me from". I think it is generally understood to mean that the version of the song referred to is the version that was sung or recorded by the named source, and indeed to some extent negates the suggestion that it was learned "live"

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:16 AM

No-one's abused anyone's children (as far as I know), though if anyone gleaned the impression that I thought the OP's actions in depriving her own children of an education was tantamount to child abuse, they're right.
Many contributors have described this same OP's posts as bollocks because they are; unsubstantiated, rambling, contradictory, backed by not a vestige of proof and downright dangerous.
You couldn't grace them with such an elevated description as an "opinion".
Time after time, people spare the patience to advise and point her towards information and knowledge.
But where does she go?
Away with the fucking fairies, prancing and flouncing in glitter in front of mainstages and her "boysies".

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:11 AM

The OP started the thread and the usual suspects passed their dead hand across it, changing it, squeezing the life and fun out of it until it became like all the rest. The crystal slipper made to fit so they could have a ball. That IMHO, stinks.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:10 AM

"bringing personal hatreds out into the public domain."

You're absolutely right there. Look at the OP's first post. If you start a thread as an attack, people will respond in kind.

I thought the recent attacks by the OP on EFDSS and Walter Pardon fuckin' stank, as it happens, but they were allowed to stand.

What was it my mother used to say? Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:09 AM

Er..guys, I don't want to upset you here...but...if you actually *read* some of my posts, you'll see that I've said over and again I've NO problems with you all loving the music your way, writing your way, or thinking your way. I have a problem being told that I should get on and read those books...go into the history of it all, over and again, because...my mind won't do that. I love it all a different way. I'm happy as I am. Honest.

I love history, the bits I can recall that is. :0) But...history's a mystery to me, dates and all, tumble all around and come out backwards....The Romans come before the Vikings, because R comes before V in the alphabet...See? That's my Timeline. 1645 is a quarter to seven, and that's when we used to meet in the pub after the Sealed Knot (English Civil War) battles. It's just what my brain does, that's all. YOUR brains do lots of other things.

You love the details and the music, I love the colours and the music.
That's all, except I accept that you love your music the way you do, and don't want to love it like I do. Maybe you could take something from that...?

And thank you, Backwoodsman, I was going to bring in the colour spectrum/prism thingyummyjig, but you got there first, well done! ;0)

I *was* alive in 1968...been alive since 1955...and I'm **still** alive....that's why I love those Oysters and Seth's music! LOL Just joking, keep yer knickers on everyone. :0)

Yes, facts ARE important. History IS important. Knowledge IS important...


BUT....

Knowledge should NEVER be used as a weapon to demean, belittle, pontificate or humiliate.

I've said that probably hundreds of times over the years, but it doesn't stop *some* of those with brains that recall facts, from doing just that. Knowledge isn't just about facts, nor even just about history, there is much knowledge that comes from within, that can't be found in books.

John Tams has 'the knowledge'...and 'the magic'...that's why he's a natural teacher.

John Tams is Beyond Professor.
He's a True Teacher.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:07 AM

It could be said that Lloyd operated in reverse fashion: he arrived at a theory of folk music and then "found" the songs to fit it.

Sure it could be. By somebody who knew bugger-all about Lloyd and wanted to know less.

It's more interesting to know what could truthfully be said.

What glueman calls "the embedded historiographic approach" culminates in that preposterous expression "from the singing of". My own introductions rarely exceed ten words: if a song can't sell itself to an audience under its own steam then either I'm singing it badly or it's not worth singing in the first place.

You won't have much time for Utah Phillips, Sheila Stewart or Cathal McConnell, then.

Mostly I do tunes, and I prefer to do afterwords rather than introductions. I aim to play the tune well enough to get people asking what it's about and to have a good and true story to answer them with, no bluffs or shrugs.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:02 AM

"If you don't like the intellectually-based ones, don't take part. Simples."

Absolutely, Ruth.
Unfortunately some, much, of what's been written above isn't 'intellectually-based', it's the usual UK-Mudcat mudslinging, name-calling and people behaving generally like vile hooligans.

Insulting someone, abusing their children, telling someone their opinion is 'bollocks', decrying an individual for simply loving something 'for itself' isn't intellectualised discussion is it?

This is another example of what should have been an interesting discussion which has been ruined by the usual suspects, bringing personal hatreds out into the public domain.

It fuckin' stinks.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:01 AM

Well, the Devil's Interval all attended the folk degree at Newcastle. It's quite possible that they were given this form of words as a way of appropriately presenting the songs they were learning from the traditional reprertoire.

Where you saw pretension, perhaps the objective was respect.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:59 AM

what - I want to talk about an idea you've raised, and now I'm condescending? You won't need any help, I hope, knowing how chippy you sound.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: tijuanatime
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:57 AM

>>Given that I was born after Sam Larner died, is it likely that my statement "this is from the singing of..." will mislead anyone in the audience into thinking Sam Larner actually taught it to me...<<

It suppose that depends who your audience is. I've only been interested in this music for two or three years: one of the first concerts I went to was by The Devil's Interval and most of their songs were "from the singing of" - in my naivety I assumed that they had indeed learnt them face to face, but further research revealed that they could only have learnt them from records.

Maybe it's harmless romanticism but that particular form of words strikes me as ineffably pretentious.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:38 AM

"It's an interesting idea, and one I'd be happy to explore further."

And being bright you won't need any help believing how condescending that sounds.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:37 AM

It isn't in 'the spirit of academic rigour' though, is it? It's in the spirit of brow-beating and brinkmanship that marks the rest of Mudcat discussions. Pumeling others into malleable dough the easier to dispose of their words and re-set the folk dial to business as usual.

If you can't see that folk is perceived through the historically valorised position of its enthusuasts to the detriment of other readings, nothing I say will convince you.

You made a statement. I'd like to see some evidence that it is true.

That's all. Complaining about the messenger is not academic rigour.