Re: Survival langauge

Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
[...]
> No pretentions of having either. Unlike you, who have so much
> experience driving cattle in the nineteenth century that you can be
> confident that even though the line is typically rendered "lead an
old
> Dan", not only must it really be "leading Old Dan" (as it is
> occasionally rendered) but also that this must be a transparent
> (though, strangely, unattested) reference to leading the life of a
> character in a "minstrel song". That it is completely impossible
that
> "an old dan" could be a type of horse. And that "Old Paint"
couldn't
> be the name of a horse, even though nearly all of the minority of
> sources that give the line as "leading Old Dan" give the prior line
as
> "riding Old Paint".

There is also the rare version with "old Fan": oddly, that's the one
I first met. There's no animal-lore reason to prefer either "ridin'
old Paint" or "ride an old paint": the word's used both ways. People
are always putting "old" before horses' names: it isn't itself
usually part of the name. I must say I find "a dan" pretty unlikely,
both because it doesn't feel right to me, and because plenty of
people would probably have long since told us what it meant if it
wasn't a proper name. The internal logic of the line seems, ideally,
to call for two nouns of the same category, so I go for "ridin' old
Paint" and "leadin' old Dan/Fan".

These seem to be our hero's personal property, not just two of the
large number in the remuda, so they'd pretty certainly have _had_
names.
>
>> Purl Gurl - wearing her cowgirl hat and little else YEEE HAWW!
>
> I suspect that I'm not the only one who's beginning to suspect that
> this is because clothing gets in the way when pulling theories out.

I suspect you may be joking.

--
Mike.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Saving Face
    ... >>The glass is really half full, ... > Dan, as we age we tend to forget how our course to adulthood was sent ... > suspect he's a bit surprised at how easy it is to be knocked off his ... Or sorely lacking on fluid! ...
    (rec.autos.sport.nascar)
  • Re: Survival langauge
    ... silly to pursue the words of songs too closely, ... mixes up separate bits of buckaroo life. ... >>> I suspect that I'm not the only one who's beginning to suspect ... That bit about "leading the life of Old Dan Tucker" ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: optical pattern tracers
    ...  no...@xxxxxxxxxxx (dan) wrote: ... silhouette. ... but I suspect that given the expense per sensor channel ...
    (rec.crafts.metalworking)
  • Re: Conventions
    ... >>>trying to reason with Dan, who appears to be immune to it. ... >>>worthy of killfiling. ... > And I suspect you're right. ... I've skipped over a lot of posts as this ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)