'Celtoid': please define

Subject: 'Celtoid': please define
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:08 AM

I've begun seeing this word only recently. At first I thought it might be a derogatory term, perhaps meaning "phony Celtic," "Celtic-but-not-really," etc., but now I have my doubts. I *think* I've read messages where someone mentions their participation in a "Celtoid band" with no negative connotations at all.

What's it mean? Where does it come from? Is it used more frequently in one community (one side of the ocean) than in another? Please enlighten.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: MMario
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:13 AM

I would take it to mean "in the Celtic style but not authentic" - whatever "celtic" means in the first place...

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:21 AM

el punkoid nouveau might have an answer (just joking, EPN!)

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:43 AM

celtoids..

what scots can suffer from under their kilts

if they dont eat enough hi-fibre porridge in their diets...???

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Mooh
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:59 AM

I use it, for a lack of more imagination, to describe my group which does songs and tunes which fall under the usual celtic description but that also does more contemporary music in the traditional style and acoustic instrumentation which may border on what passes for celtic. Celtic roots would work for me also. Nothing derogatory intended, just a lack of a single word to mean what I want to say.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: IanC
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 11:18 AM

I think it's a triangular shape made from cellulose.

;-)

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 12:24 PM

Pretty much as Mooh said; a decent working definition might be "somewhat Celtic-influenced".

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 01:42 PM

Irish androids having a session? That's why they got rid of the smoking in the bars, because it used to play hell with the microchips.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 01:56 PM

A Yorkshireman's instruction to commercially dispose of the dog's two-tone skin?

Regards

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:54 PM

I'd probably describe my own music as Celtoid, because it is influenced by Celt music, but not restricted to it.
My own brother called it Celt Blues once...

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:56 PM

Thanks to all -- maybe I could be Celtoid, myself...

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:55 PM

The "-oid" attachment to common words has been around for quite some time, but since it's basically a "slang" thing the definitions are rather loose.

A very early usage that I encountered, probably 40 or more years ago, was the term "factoid," used to denote a "fragment" of "information" with possibly/probably dubious usefulness.

As I've seen the appendage applied, it often implies:

1. Fragmented/fragmental association (with the subject at hand, or from which it derives).
2. Dubious usefulness/validity/applicability.
3. Having a "life of it's own, in some sense.

Usable both for nouns and adjectives, but usually attached to an "object" in noun sense. Often mildly deprecating, but increased use has diluted the impact of the derogatory connotations.

It may, perhaps, have made it's way into some of the slang dictionaries, in which case it's usefulness as a slang term is no longer truly viable for those who created it.

John

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:30 PM

Other useful words might be
Celtical
Celticalistic
Celticalistical
Celtish
Celtique
Paraceltic

Each of these, and other, terms to have ever so slightly differnt nuances - some pejorative, and some not.

If I read that something was "Celtoid", my first impression would be that it would have the characteristics associated in the popular mind with "Celtic", without actually being Celtic. You know: a certain type of minor key sound, whistfulness, a bit of mist, melancholy and all that tosh. A lot of romantic nonsense is talked about Celts, in much the same way as a certain type of English person talks a lot of nonense about Anglo Saxons.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:31 PM

Or, before someone else points it out: "wistfulness". There is little evidence that the Celts were big card players.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Cluin
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:40 PM

Curiously strong mints that have been marinated in Guinness.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:41 PM

What's wrong with Oirish?

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 07:41 PM

Interesting program on UK History last weekend tracing Norse genetic influences across the British Isles. Turns out that Scotland is no more Celtic than Sussex.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:23 PM

HA!

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 11:15 PM

Sounds more like a new sub-atomic particle to go along with things like the electron, neutron, neutrino, suppositron etc.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 11:25 PM

Coined originally, so far as I recall, to describe the "wannabe celt" type who hasn't the first idea about the real thing, but owns a synthesiser and a whistle, and knows how to copy the style of an Enya record.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: open mike
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 02:58 AM

is a suppositron what you insert if you have celtoids?
and what about those quarks? up? down? beauty?

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Mooh
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 07:46 AM

I like Malcolm's definition except that it means I have to stop using it in my usual manner. What he describes makes my skin crawl. Mooh.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:11 AM

Kevin, Oirish is only part of it - celtoid also includes Scotch Mist

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:00 AM

I usually use "Celto-crap" to describe the "somewhat Celtic-influenced," usually vaguely New Age-ish (know what you get when you play New Age music backwards? New Age music) instrumental equivalent of the stuff singer-songwriters should leave in their journals usually performed by someone who wouldn't recognize a traditional Irish or Scots song if they heard it on the radio, and probably wouldn't like it if they did because it wasn't ethereal enough.

"Oirish" refers to the songs American Irish want to hear on St. Patrick's Day -- "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," "It's a Great Day for the Irish" and such non-Irish (usually American) "Irish" songs for the green beer set.

Linn

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Davetnova
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:24 AM

Would a Deltoid play something vaguely Bluesy?

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:58 AM

Since "Celtic" is a linguistic term , and has nothing whatsoever to do with genetics and "race" all that stuff, clearly Scotland is more Celtic than Sussex.

They haven't spoken any Celtic language in any part of Sussex for a couple of thousand years, whereas they still do in parts of Scotland, and until recently did in much larger parts of the country. Including people with predominantly Norse ancestry.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:34 AM

At least 25 years ago I heard a group of people jamming on pseudo-Celtic tunes referred to as "Ireoids".

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Dave4Guild
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:06 PM

I should think it would have to be played using open string theory tuning to help understand the differences between the celtoid elements and their relationship to other fundamental particles.

The equation E=MC2, springs to mind, where
E= Ethnicity
M= musicallity
C=Celtishness (Squared of course!)

Of course this is pre Quantum theory maths, and doesn't always provide a full explanation.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:29 PM

*Pedant alert*

For the sake of completeness, the suffix "-oid" is from the Greek, meaning "-like", so

an asteroid is a celestial object that looks like a star
a planetoid is a small celestial object like a planet
an android is a machine that looks like a man
etc.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the coiners or users of the term necessarily had that in mind, but it works in application, in many cases (especially Malcolm's definition).

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 01:16 AM

People tend to forget about the Scottish Celts. The Irish have taken it up as their own now...

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 01:54 AM

I'd as soon lose the term "Celtic" altogether as applied to music; it's so abused as to be meaningless. If we could just say "Irish" or "Scottish" or "Welsh" (or "English", come to that; except where Celtic languages are involved, there isn't a significant dividing line) we would have a far better idea what we were talking about. I don't suppose that would suit the "Celtic Twilight" romantics, though; or the marketing people at the record companies.

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 01:55 AM

True Malcolm, the only people that seem to be concerned are the ones that are quick to label things, and put them in a little box...

: )

Subject: RE: 'Celtoid': please define
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:18 AM

the only people that seem to be concerned are the ones that are quick to label things, and put them in a little box

Like record companies.

Linn