The Execrable Term

Bibliographic Data

ID6031670
AuthorsGibb Schreffler (0000-0003-2852-3332, Pomona College, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume92
Issue4
Pages429-458
Publication date2017-11-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Speech (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00031283-4395157
OpenAlexW2804776801
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

Writing in American Speech in 1955, John Lyman provided literary evidence to support the idea that the term chanty [ʃænti], in reference to a type of song, originated in the American South. At that time, such history-based challenges to current romantic images of sailors and their “sea shanties” were overshadowed by a dominant discourse reinforced through several decades of popular media. Today, a much larger body of historical evidence establishes a case for this song genre as a regional American development that eventually found its way aboard international vessels. The term chanty, however, was only later applied to the genre and was not long in use before the genre itself was disappearing from the decks of ships. Nonetheless, the term captured the imagination of authors who, in subsequent selective and prescriptive writings about its speculative origin, orthography, and pronunciation, effectively shaped popular visions of the genre. In reviewing the development of the usage of chanty, we see not only the hidden history of an area of American speech, but also an example of how seemingly mundane matters of terminology can affect understanding of a subject

Aesthetics · Art · Linguistics · Literature · Orthography · Reading (process · Romance · Sociology · Subject (documents · Term (time · Terminology · Vision · Anthropology · Computer Science · History · Philosophy

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