"CHANTY” OR "SHANTY?”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20781, 29 July 1929, Page 7

"CHANTY” OR "SHANTY?”

TO THR EDITOR. Sib, —On Saturday a correspondent asked “ Civis ” to enlighten him on the meaning of the sea shanty. " Cleai tlie tract, let the Bullginc runi” Having in my Possession a copy of “The Shanty Book,’ part 1. hy Richard Runciman Terry, and having read the story of the ' tune. I g-ve the information required, which is copied from page xv: The reference to the Bullgine. seems to suggest Transatlantic origin. There were endless verses, but no attempt at narrative beyond a recital' of the names of places which • and to which they were running. This, version was sung to me' by Mr F. B. Mayoss, n seaman who sailed ir the old China clippers. It is also stated in the above work that ”• L.'Henley, a fine poet, created the )L or( l !l c^an ty,’’ and the literary sailors, Clark Russell and Frank Bu’len, also used the same way of spelling it; but the Oxford Dictionary prints it "shanty,” which word never found its way into print until 1869. Mr Terry quote; what he calls an unconvincing theory regarding the origin of the word, and many urge that the word was derived from negro hut removals in the West Indian seaports' visited by merchantmen. , When the negroes wished to remove a.hut (shanty) by means of a rope attached to the shanty the operation was done to music, and the soloist was called the shanty man. Like the shanty man at sea, he did no work, but merely extemporised verses to which the workers at the ropes supplied the chorus. Finally, the negroes 'still pronounce the word itself exactly ns the seamen did.—l am, etc., Lakblubbeb,