What is 'Fire Maringo' about

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 20 May 23 - 06:14 PM

RE: Here & the linked threads & pop entertainment sources &c:

A reference to Nordhoff is a reference to popular entertainment. It's young adult fiction:
Do we really think the Alabaman chantyman jotted down his extempore lyrics for young sailor Nordhoff?
Did young Nordhoff sound things out for himself, spelling, pronunciation and all, and keep notes for future reference?
Did author Nordhoff recall the lyrics from memory and guess at the spellings years after the fact?
Is it pure young adult reader popular fiction loosely based on true experience?


MARINGO is apparently a Swahili word. Which could mean it's of African origin?

Swahili could give English a run for the title of most appropriated/borrowed/stolen. The very word Swahili is not Bantu. It's Arabic. A 19th century Sub-Saharan 'African' Maringo, even borrowed and/or relevant to Nordhoff, wouldn't be in Roman alphabet.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: GUEST,Alan
Date: 20 May 23 - 09:41 AM

MARINGO is apparently a Swahili word. Which could mean it's of African origin?

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Greg B
Date: 13 Jun 10 - 03:54 PM

It means that Frank Woerner's singing.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jun 10 - 07:34 AM

Always the odd begrudger round here: "Oh, just go read the old threads.... :) The anonymous GUEST has already disappeared, as per usual!"

Don't worry about that, GUEST, find yourself a name and sign on. The Mudcat is a pretty friendly and helpful place, albeit confusing at first sometimes. (And that comment there did have a smiley.)

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Howard Jones
Date: 13 Jun 10 - 07:00 AM

Perhaps ask a more specific question? The OP asked what "Fire Maringo" was about - not the meaning of the word "maringo".

The shanty, as explained here and in other threads, is about screwing cotton.

Hugill, as I said earlier, seemed to think "maringo" is an Irish word, which he says in Shanties of the Seven Seas is found in many Irish folksongs, where he quotes:

As I was a going along the road
As I was a going a-walking
I heard a young lassie in the shade
To a young man she was talking
Ch With a maringo do-a-day
With a maringo do-a-daddy-o!

Whilst I can't say I've noticed the word cropping up in other Irish songs, if Hugill was correct it seems to be one of those nonsense words which may or may not be derived from the Irish language, or may simply be a bit of "mouth music" to fill in a chorus.

That doesn't explain the expression "Fire maringo". It could have been an expression from another language, perhaps a non-English shanty, which got picked up because the singer liked it. After all, it's a good line to belt out - it doesn't have to mean anything. Perhaps Doerflinger was right, and it came from the black stevedores the British cotton screwers worked alongside.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 11:20 PM

Oh, just go read the old threads.... :) The anonymous GUEST has already disappeared, as per usual!

God it's been 24 hours! That's what I call disappearing without a trace. Call Scotland Yard!

I was the O.P. on this thread. Maybe you could suggest a good search strategy. I typed in "Maringo" in the search box and got several hundred hits.    What is a good strategy to narrow down the search to mainly discussions of word meanings and origins?

Thank-you to everyone else!

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 12:51 PM

Perhaps we need a permathread- Why people never read previous threads and posts.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 11:28 AM

Oh, just go read the old threads.... :) The anonymous GUEST has already disappeared, as per usual!

And if you search in this thread you'll find all 4 (if I remember correctly) historical references to the song. They are described within context of how and when the song was sung/used.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Howard Jones
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 11:12 AM

Indeed. Hugill goes on to say that the men who screwed cotton were often English or Irish seamen earning money between trips. They would have picked up songs from black workers and songs and shanties will have passed in both directions. He says "the Gulf Ports could have been called the shanty mart or work-song exchange!"

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 09:51 AM

Howard-

The song definitely orininated as a cotton-screwing shanty in the southern gulf ports. Wheather the screw-press gang was Irish or Black is an open question; both White and Blacks had a history of screwing cotton, seldom were the teams racially mixed.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Howard Jones
Date: 12 Jun 10 - 04:45 AM

It's a cotton-screwing shanty. Cotton was stowed in the ship's hold and packed down tight using jackscrews - a job which in Hugill's words required much shantying.

"Screw the cart and screw him down" is a mondegreen - it should be "screw the cotton".

To quote Hugill again: "Doerflinger seems to think that Fire Maringo is of Negro-origin, but I think that Ireland is as like as not its birthplace. The word 'maringo' is the clue. This quaint word is found in many Irish folk songs".

He says the tune has been lost. The current tune may have come from the influential British group The Young Tradition who recorded it in the 1960s.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 07:41 PM

That battle was raised in the main thread. No one can prove it is or isn't taken from the battle.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: GUEST,schlimmerkerl
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 05:49 PM

It's about this-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marengo. NB: According to legend, Napoleon's chef scrounged a meal for the general from a chicken, local crayfish, mushrooms, and whatever else was handy. The dish became known as "Chicken Marengo".

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 07:11 PM

Hi -
I've crosslinked all the threads on "Fire Maringo," and you'll find the links above. I use the Filter to find threads by thread name, and that usually works best for me. You'll see the Filter at the top of the list of threads on our main menu. since it could be either "Fire Maringo" or "Fire Marengo," I put fire mar in the filter box, set the age back, and the threads come up.

Hope that helps.

This YouTube Search will lead you to some nice recordings.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: ClaireBear
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 06:33 PM

The estimable Q and I have linked to the same thread, but as usual he beat me to it.

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: ClaireBear
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 06:17 PM

Most of those links are to the same thread: this one.

I think if you read that one thread, you are likely to get the information you seek.

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 06:15 PM

Charley Noble suggested Maringo was the name of a stevedore (see thread 63103).
Fire maringo

As good an explanation as any.

Subject: What is 'Fire Maringo' about
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jun 10 - 05:48 PM

What is "Fire Maringo" about?

lyrics

... and what is a good way to use Mudcat's search feature to find out?   When I search I get the lyrics link, above, and then around a hundred thread links, and it's entirely possible someone has already asked this question but is there any way to find it without looking at each link?

Thanks in adbvance.