Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From:
Gibb Sahib
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 12:28 PM
The thing we are talking about is a type of work-song, or work-CHANT if you like, that developed amongst African-American laborers and which, by the 1830s, had been adopted by sailors of various nations. Before then, there had been a patchy tradition of work-songs aboard ship. However, although nowadays we conveniently label all maritime work-songs as chantey/shanty/shanty (especially to distinguish them from maritime NON-work-songs), one could argue that before this period there was no "chantey" per se. The African-American based genre has a distinct-enough form and character that one can see the "chantey" (in whatever erstwhile spelling/pronunciation) as something fairly new – a new addition to the previous (though as I said, seemingly patchy) practice of shipboard work-songs. Indeed, a "chantey," strictly speaking, was not restricted to work aboard ship. As such it was a label for a particular mode of coordinating work through chanting that was developed in African-American trades and later found useful by those of other ethnicities engaged in similar work.
The word seems to originate in America then, amongst stevedores. (Note that "chant" or "chaunt" had been in use to describe songs with the particular connotations of being sung by African-Americans.) The earliest citation known to date is the description of the cotton-stowing stevedores of Mobile Bay of the 1840s, where their practice is referred to as "chanting" and their lead man is called "chanty-man" (Nordhoff 1855). P.H. Gosse (1859) observed the same practice in 1838, but gave it no name. In 1867, Clarke (SEVEN YEARS A SAILOR'S LIFE) used "chanty" for both stevedore-type and shipboard work.
The practice of using this new-ish form was completely established by then, though to what extent the term "chanty" was used is debatable. I also want to re-iterate that whatever the earlier references to maritime work-songs, they may not have been what was originally known as "chanty". The really short hauls ("yo heave HO!") were probably existing in some form among "all" maritime nations long back. And the merely pace-setting, spirit-keeping capstan songs that could easily come from shore ditties and fiddler's airs are a distinct form from the stuff that was first called chanty. That stuff was especially suited to the long halyard pulls and windlass heaves (though also adapted to capstan, as nearly any song could be). It seems that while THIS kind of work-song became common aboard ship, worksongs became a way of life there, and subsequently the various forms, ancient and more recent, from the African-American paradigm and the European ballad-type paradigm, were all lumped…and eventually subsumed under the term "chanty."
"Ch" is by far the common spelling of the 19th century. Before one starts talking about "fakelore" and "American aberrations" one had better check all the sources. I am looking at a chronological bibliography of texts about or mentioning chanties and rarely does "shanty" appear. The "sh" form does not appear in a big way until Whall's 1910 book. However, in the English vs. American debate, one would be wise to note that Cecil Sharp (ever heard of him?) called his 1914 book ENGLISH FOLK-CHANTEYS.
The turning point seems to have come with Englishman R.R. Terry who, in an address to the Royal Music Association on 18 May, 1915, advocated for the spelling of "shanty." He cites two reasons, the main being that it should be spelled "as it sounds." That is a fairly absurd notion if one considers the changes that would need to be made to English spelling all around is one were to apply that idea uniformly. Nor has there been a problem with pronouncing the sound in chandelier and chamois and other words with French orthography. And not to mention that Noah Webster's very same initiative to "spell as it sounds" gives us the divide between colour and color – "American aberrations." Seems Terry was creating an "English aberration." His other, weak reason for the "sh" spelling was his idea that "shanty" was called so because of the West Indian practice of shifting shanty homes with work-songs. The strength of that argument speaks for itself! In the discussion following his address, the chair of the panel states his disagreement.
Now, how did "SH" begin to stick? My hunch would be that Terry's works had become the popular source for the first Revival – or so Hugill has claimed that the drawing room chantey-singers of the 20s-30s were mostly influenced by Terry.
"CH" still persisted as the most common spelling in publications into the 1920s, when Terry's books were published. However, Colcord adopted the "SH" in here 1924 ROLL AND GO. From reading her text, it is clear that she was in correspondence with Terry and used his works as a basis of comparison (at that point only the first had been published).
The confusion happens after then. Take these 2 article titles for example:
1928 Broadwood, Lucy E. and A.H. Fox-Strangways. "Early Chanty-Singing and Ship-Music." Journal of the Folk-Song Society 8(32)
1928 Thomas, J.E., Lucy E. Broadwood, Frank Howes, and Frank Kidson. "Sea Shanties." Journal of the Folk-Song Society 8(32)
Same journal issue; 2 different spellings.
While "CH" persisted from then, now in especially American publications, there is no consistency. Doerflinger (1951), based in New York, used "SH", although I wonder how much that had to do with creating his clever title SHANTYMEN AND SHANTYBOYS (the latter being a term for lumberjacks, who lived in shanty huts!).
Hugill's work certainly spread the "SH", but it was already well established by then in the post-Revival era.
For further reference, see
Lyman, John. 1955. "Chantey and Limey." American Speech 30(3): 172-175.
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