Best 100 folk words ever

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Dani
Date: 17 Aug 99 - 09:08 AM

Ok Art - since no one else has bitten...

What IS your best square inch??

And I respectfully submit the following:

poor/po'

ma/mah/mama

gone

Now let's start a thread on the best POP words (where you get to spell things like ramalamadingdong)

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Canberra Chris
Date: 17 Aug 99 - 04:17 AM

1. "Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! Nyaaagh! And that's the only song that he could sing." I don't remember any of the verses, that's the chorus. Anyone know the rest?

2. An entire Scottish song sung by Maddy Prior with Steeleye Span that is in 'English' but completely incomprehensible. You know the one.

3. A Song title by Adge Cutler and the Wurzels (West Country Zummerzet Straw & Smock Grunge Skiffle from the 60's), I don't have it to hand, that goes something like: "Thee Dursn't Cusn't Hasn't ... etc"

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 06:01 PM

Kathy,

Have you been here lurking all along?? It's great to be in touch. This thread got started because I took Carol's medication last night by mistake. And I've been roundly drummed out of other threads around here lately & needed somewhere to go and lurk/hide myself.

Love to all there inside the beltway--outside too.

Art

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: KathWestra
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 05:02 PM

This is truly a wacky thread. Must indeed be silly season.I'd just like to note, with gratitude, that the word "Milennium" DOESN'T appear in folksongs. Nice to know we're safe from it somewhere. Kathy

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 04:42 PM

all of the above...but NOT 'folk'

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 12:11 PM

a

an

the

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 12:08 PM

E-I-E-I-O

That's from a polka, right? Actually the entire lyic to the song---that over and over and over...probably the title too.

Roger---you have no problem. De nada! The guy who has a real problen is the one who attends TWELVE STEP GROUPS ANONYMOUS---for people addicted to 12 Step Groups. Just going to the meetings activates your compulsion.

These are wonderful words. All of them. And they so rarely get any chance at all to showcase themselves as the very real individuals they truly are. Next year they're all going to the big Folk Alliance meeting in Tienamin Square. (But I heard that China won't allow any AGENTS into the country...)

Another good old folk word, that I understand was anathema to Woody Guthrie (and many during the 60s) but was widely touted in a recent thread about Dr. Bronner is:

SOAP

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Bert
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 09:43 AM


Titifalafalay - from Look at that Now
Nipperkin - The Barley Mow
Dinga - The Curate and the Vicar
Maggie - Maggie May
Divoty (Sp) - Swansea Town
Hiraeth - We'll keep a Welcome in The Hillside
Westering - Westering Home'
Billabong - Waltzing Matilda
Upidee - Upidee
stalwart - Tarpaulin Jacket
Shenandoah - Shenandoah
croonin', cromak & Tummel - from The Road to The Isles
E-I-E-I-O - Old Macdonald
Gloamin' - Roamin' in the gloamin'

Bert.

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From:
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 08:46 AM

LONG as in "Seven LONG years" - this can be applied to girls disguised as sailor boys 'til their tits pop out & they marry the captain, to years my true love spent in jail, americay or on the high seas and almost every other period of interest in a folk song.

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From:
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 08:42 AM

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 05:38 AM

Drink

(What do you mean, I have a problem?
OK I confess. My name is Roger and I have a kazoo, but I haven't played it for several weeks....
Oh, you mean THAT problem...)
If the good Lord meant me to be teetotal he wouldn't have invented so many lovely drinks.

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Barbara
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 01:23 AM

"absquatulate" v.t. from some civil war era song I heard a long time ago; means to make off with the goods, as in "that feller absquatulated with all our tin".

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: CarlZen
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 12:45 AM

skinamerinkadoodle (Little Beggerman)

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Pelrad
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 12:30 AM

I always liked "heave-a-pawl," from various shanties. Great verb.

Oh, and "jakaijenut" from a song I once heard some Polish guys sing in French. To this day I don't know what they meant, but they were very earnest about it. :-)

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 10:30 PM

Len,

"A Horse Named Bill" was included in Carl Sandburg's ___THE AMERICAN SONGBAG___ (1927) Harcourt, Brace, Jovanavich.

It was on Bob Gibson's first LP for Riverside called __Offbeat Folksongs__

Art

P.S.--- to you all: My absolute favorite word in all of American folk studies has to be, from the song "JOHN HENRY"--------"HAMMER !!! (Now that's a word to be reckoned with (I reckon).) There are so very many implications. And they have such a social conscience--indeed, such a presence that I can hardly stand it---man against the machine & all that crap. And the various virgins---er versions----can actually be numbered like those famous Children's Ballads are. There are so very many favorite words of mine within those scholarly holy pages collected in the fields (?)that I can barely contain myself------AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!! ("I'll have what she's having.") I just wish you all knew what I know. Those were grand times drinking and carousing and acting like nutsos and hoping we'd turn into Woody. If we could only live through an actual dust storm.

That's another great folk word: DUST

Art

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 09:34 PM

"splatamalatamalingo"...since it was only sung and not written, I take the liberty of calling it one word..*grin*..heard Hedy West sing it as one version of "Wee Cooper 'o Fife"

"Little old man lived way out west"
Dan-doo, dan-doo
Little old man lived way out west,
Clash to my clingo.
Little old man lived way out west,
He had a wife, she's none o' the best
Splatamalatamalingo.."

etc....

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Len N
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 09:26 PM

Art... I got to agree with you about exhaustionized and sharpshootress. I recall these two and cataleptics from a song, (Horse named Bill, or something like that), off of Jerry Garcia's and David Grisman's Not Just For Kids... Not having heard any other renditions of the song besides theirs, I have wondered if those three words were their contribution to the song or if that is the way it has been sung by others.... Are you able to enlighten me?

Thanks

Len

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 09:23 PM

Actually "fire", I made it up, but I was a little worried about defining it as a "folk" or "contemporary acoustic" word, so I attributed it to John Jacob Niles. No royalties expected though. Enjoy it.
Rick

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: campfire
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 08:59 PM

I don't think its in a song, but the best word I ever learned on this SITE was "flunderblunking" - thanks to Rick Fielding. I forget where he said he got it, but I use it regularly now.

campfire

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: emily rain
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 04:44 PM

kittypulullapulullapuleye

(do we count diddle lines as words? i consider this the best diddle line ever.)

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Llanfair
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 04:06 PM

This is a wind-up, isn't it? You can't be serious!!! This makes wrestling in jelly look like an olympic sport. AAAAAAh, of course, it's the silly season!!!!! Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 03:49 PM

Sorry Rick,

I forgot to read however.

Don

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 03:36 PM

Don. I didn't forget "bold".
Rick

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 03:29 PM

Lets don't forget:

Bold

Bonnie

Dearie

-oh

Don

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 03:01 PM

How about "silkie', it can be used to describe seals, thighs and hair. However I think that "bold" may be the most popular word of all. "Gutless, craven, cowardly, dimwit, and incontinent" rarely seem to come up at all - at least in my repertoire.

Rick

Subject: RE: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Margo
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 02:34 PM

How about "Fooba Wooba"! That is from a Burl Ives song, Fooba Wooba John. I found a very similar song at a renaissance site. Very interesting, but stupid! (I wonder how many youngsters will understand that last remark!)

Margarita

Subject: BEST 100 FOLK WORDS EVER:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 02:19 PM

In keeping with our need to pick the ONE HUNDRED BEST of various things lately, please allow me to propose a new survey:

For years I've seen ads for "The Greatest Symphony Themes Ever"--(only the well know parts) sold in sets for very little money from Readers Digest & other place.

Years ago, radio station WFMT-FM in Chicago created an ad for a book called "Great Square Inches Of Art"---filled with only the best square inches from the great paintings of the world---a Botticelli cheek, a Rubens buttox, a Cezanne apple segment, a Grant Wood hayfork tyne tip, a square from a Monet water lilly, a Divinci genital, a square from a Dali watch, an actual replica of square from a Rodin bulging bicep suitable for use as a paperweight--etc., etc.

My idea here is for us to see if we can agree on the hundred (or so) favorite/best single WORDS from any folksong in any language!!

I would like to start with these words:

dogies

cuckoo

Abulbul

Ameer

cataleptics

sharpshootress

exhautionized

levee

cuckoo

long-haired-preachers (one word 'cause it's hyphenated)

diddle (v.)

juberju

El-a-noy