Origins: Divided by a common language...

Subject: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Cappuccino
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 08:16 AM

I've been wanting to ask American friends about this for ages. I recently recorded a version of Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell', and in the third line, the newly-wedded 'young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell'.   Why did they do this? Is it, or was it, part of an American wedding ceremony? Or is it something like jumping the broomstick?

Similarly, I was playing my way through Chuck's 'Maybelline' last night, and came to the line: 'I tooted my horn for the passing lane...' Why? Are you required to do this?

All the best from Norfolk (UK).
- Cap

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 10:17 AM

Hello there Capuccino! (I'm in Norfolk too!)

I well remember Maybelline in the fifties. As I understood it, the singer was miffed because his woman was with another man in a big Chevrolet while he was driving a Ford 8. So he overtook the Chevrolet and as he was in the overtaking lane he tooted his horn to annoy them. He was pleased with his car as it could go faster then theirs.

Regarding the ringing of the chapel bell, it was a New Orleans wedding I think. They have loads of interesting traditions down there, carrying lacy white umbrellas in a procession through the streets and so on. But I think the line you wonder about just means 'the chapel bell was rung for the couple'.

Dew yew keep a-troshing bor!

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 10:23 AM

And sorry - I see there are actually two 'p's in cappuccino. (I don't drink coffee, just a nice cup of tea)
I imagine some American Catters might know more about the meanings in these songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 10:32 AM

I suspect it's both literal and a double entendre. After the ceremony, all sorts of bells are rung.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 10:45 AM

Brides and grooms don't *ordinarily* ring chapel bells. This photo is the only example I can find - or ever heard of - and it suggests why not:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/403142604121360832/

And you don't blow your horn to get into the passing lane - though confirmed road-rage types might well blast it at the slowpoke ahead just before they change lanes.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Cappuccino
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 12:27 PM

Jeri, that is very clever! And that's a super pic, Lighter.

Senoufou, where are you? The 'dew yew keep a-troshin' may puzzle some of our transatlantic friends (and maybe we should translate some Norfolk) but I was actually playing the Skeyton Trosh last weekend with the Occasional Ceilidh Band.

Cheers
-Cap

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 12:32 PM

Cadillac, by the way, not Chevrolet. :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 01:51 PM

You're right Will. I get more dotty as I get older.(But the fifties was rather a long time ago) :)

Cap, we're in Breckland, in the Wensum Valley.
For those who aren't Norfolk n' Good (hee hee) 'dew yew keep a-troshing bor' means 'carry on threshing mate', in other words keep on keeping on.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 01:53 PM

That was me by the way. ^^^

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 02:04 PM

When I was a kid in the 1950's, the driver's manual actually said that when passing another vehicle, one should toot the horn. Nobody did it, and that's since been dropped.

I've never heard of a wedding couple ringing a bell. I think he put that in there because it scanned.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 03:12 PM

I can't answer any of the OP's original questions but "Maybelline" introduced me to an excellent word, "motorvatin'" as in "As I was a motorvatin' over the hill, Saw Maybelline in a Coupe De Ville".

Apparently Chuck was generous with the horn (not intended as a double entendre but it probably was) for in "You Can't Catch Me" he sings of his Flight De Ville, "Let out my wings, blew on my horn, Goodbye New Jersey I become airborne". The guy definitely had a way with words.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 03:22 PM

> when passing another vehicle, one should toot the horn.

It makes some sense. Tooting would warn the slower driver that he might have a vehicle in his blind spot, and keep him from changing lanes himself till the first driver had passed.

But even in the '50s, I never heard of this rule (I was too young to drive, but my family wasn't).

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: G-Force
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 03:28 PM

when passing another vehicle, one should toot the horn.

It certainly used to be common practice in Italy. If you lived near a main road with bends etc. all you could hear all day long and much of the night was motorists tooting.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 03:39 PM

In most areas I've lived in the USA folks blink their headlights to let
another driver know they're going to pass. It's also common to blink for trucks ahead of you to let them know that it's clear for them to move back to the right lane out of the passing lane. Haven't heard much horn honking by passers.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Jos
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 04:04 PM

AA patrol men (probably they were mostly men) and AA members used to salute each other on the road, but I don't know if that ever included 'tooting'.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 04:04 PM

> folks blink their headlights to let another driver know they're going to pass.

We must live in very different places. I've never done it, and I don't think anybody's ever done it to me - on highways from Maine to Florida (though not always by night, of course).

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: BobKnight
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 04:25 PM

I think "rang the chapel bell," is an expression rather like, "tying the knot," it's not literal. As regards Chuck and lyrics, David Gates of "Bread," no mean lyricist himself, thought Chuck the finest lyricist in Rock 'n Roll.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 07 Oct 18 - 04:59 PM

"...young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell."
“You may kiss the Bride.”

The signal for the chapel bell to be rung and start of the tintamarre (charivari) over to the wedding reception. Celtic, Irish, German & French roots way, way back.


"I honked my horn for a passin' lane."
“Horn OK Please” in the Caribbean. Different toots on different islands and the Florida mainland depending on left or right hand drives. Probably goes back to nautical signals. Still a thing in the islands, the mainland not so much except on farms, construction sites &c.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Oct 18 - 03:58 PM

Well, after all, this is Chuck Berry
who wrote such phrases as

"unless I perforate the hood ..." (of his car)

Who else would say "perforate",
besides Michael Flanders in one of his vaudeville asides
in "Madeira, M'Dear?" ?


"He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat
To view his collection of stamps..."   [pause]
[Piano pauses]
spoken:
All un-per-for-a-ted, ha ha ha ha ha!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 18 - 11:09 PM

Plenty of songs talk about chapel bells and marriage. "Do You Hear Wedding Bells" by the Jive Five, "The Three Bells" by the Browns...

It's apparently a Celtic tradition:

http://www.historyofbells.com/bells-history/history-of-wedding-bells/

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 Oct 18 - 07:57 AM

That page appears to be total fantasy. Celtic shmeltic.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Jos
Date: 09 Oct 18 - 08:39 AM

The connection between bells and weddings is clear, but it is not usually the bride and groom who do the ringing. That is what was being asked about.
For me it conjured up a picture of the couple arriving at the door of the chapel and ringing the bell - 'the bell', not 'the bells' - to be let in to be married.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Oct 18 - 01:57 PM

Sweet Jesus, that "Celtic" page. What on earth gives the stupid the idea that Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Breton people are so innocent and full of notions that we'd really believe bells kept away evil spirits! (Apart from the fact that in the time referenced by the "Celtic" nonsense, bells were not hung in towers but were rung by hand, and sounded like cowbells, gdonk, gdonk, gdonk. Wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 11 Oct 18 - 09:27 PM

Phil de Conch's interesting post about different signals on different islands led me to this -https://www.boat-ed.com/pennsylvania/studyGuide/Communicating-With-Sound-Signals/101039_101039081/
And in the UK in the 1960's it was customary to put headlights onto main beam when overtaking, but it was a dangerous practice, dazzling the overtaken driver and oncoming traffic, and soon died out. Flashing headlights is now usually an "invitation to proceed" to another driver, but needs to be interpreted carefully.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 11 Oct 18 - 09:49 PM

And (>Cappucino and Senofou) I had never thought about it, but the dialectic 'bor' or 'boy' is very close to 'boer' or 'bauer', Africaans and German for 'farmer' - so the words 'farmer's boy' (in the song) may actually refer to a misunderstood version of what I refer to as a 'binary' word, ie one repeated in a second language 'farmer-bor'. As in 'gate-way'. Which suggests - I think - that two languages were commonly spoken by people who had contact with those who only spoke one of them.
trashin' and threshin' are close enough to be he same word. Interesting!

Someone will tell me I'm totally wrong though!

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Jos
Date: 12 Oct 18 - 04:52 AM

I have always understood a 'gateway' to be the patch of ground between the gateposts. It is not the same thing as a gate.

I have always assumed that a 'farmer's boy' was a young lad working for the farmer, and that he might or might not be the farmer's son.
On the possible Afrikaans connection, wasn't 'boy' used to refer to a black worker, of any age?

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Oct 18 - 05:58 AM

Following Guest:Ripov's comment:
Flashing headlights is now usually an "invitation to proceed" to another driver, but needs to be interpreted carefully.
If visiting the UK that is a very dangerous piece of advice. According to the Highway Code the only meaning of flashed headlights is to let another driver know that you are there.
Yes, it is, sometimes, used to gesture to let another driver out, but this cannot be relied on. Similarly, lorry drivers being overtaken will often flash headlights to let a passing vehicle know that it has passed far enough to be able to pull back in. But that is courtesy only. It has no legal backing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Oct 18 - 07:06 AM

The only highway light-flashing I know of in the U.S. is the habit of blinking one's headlights as a warning to drivers going the other way to slow down ahead, either because of some danger or because of a lurking traffic officer watching for speeders.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Oct 18 - 10:46 PM

Thompson: “Sweet Jesus...”

Oy.

Miracle of the Gadarene Swine: not mere fact but the gospel truth and I don't the current Vatican office for such matters has “No Irish Allowed” on the door.

German-Americans used to smash up the family china (“shards bring luck”) but the old word is polterabend, which is about the noise making.

Tradition and language evolve with the folk. A lot of them went went from chasing evil spirits; to bringing good luck; to noise for the sake of noise. That a steeple got added along the way is just architecture.

"Round de neck" brake drums and rebar mallets are both fairly recent. Gdonk – gdank, same-same.

People tied tin cans to car bumpers and honked their car horns all the way from the church to the wedding reception just for fun and “tradition.” Didn't really know, or care, why all that much.

A very long time ago the party followed the couple right into the bedroom and cheered them on. Today we just ring a bell with they kiss.

Aaaaaaand speaking of China, 1.4 billion peoples can't all be wrong about the whole firecracker thing... can they?

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Oct 18 - 10:47 PM

Ditto on the international high beam caution. To Yanks and Caribbeans, in addition to the above, it could also mean:

“Dim your high beams to oncoming traffic or if being overtaken in multiple lanes, it's a signal to yield the lane to faster traffic.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Oct 18 - 09:49 AM

"Dim your high beams to oncoming traffic"

That too. Mea culpa mentis.

Subject: RE: Origins: Divided by a common language...
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Oct 18 - 09:53 AM

There are many similar terms in our different but same language.

We have gang rapes and you have rape gangs which are totally different.