Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Old MacWho? - British v. US English?
Message-ID: <E1939D.23y@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 02:36:49 GMT
Lines: 37


I was just reading Marjorie Boulton's _The Anatomy of Poetry_ (Routledge 
& Kegan Paul, 1953, I think), and ran across the following example & 
attribution (in the chapter on onomatopoeia):

`"with a quack quack here and a quack quack there,
	here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack quack"
					-Old MacDougall'

Call me a Yank or something, but I *have* to protest.  Every 
English-speaking child over the age of three (west of Bermuda, anyhow) 
knows *perfectly* well that that quotation came from "Old MacD*onald*", 
not "Old MacDougall".  But, seriously, is this a point on which we 
transatlantic common linguists differ?

Also, Dr. Boulton had a series of verses in which she illustrated the 
more common metrical feet (and did little else), and it certainly looked 
to me like the scansion indicated she was using "dactylic" as if it were 
accented on the first syllable.  Now, for me, while "dactyl" is stressed 
on the first syllable, "dactylic" takes it on the second--and my Merriam 
Webster's 10th backs me up.  But again, is "dactylic" perchance accented 
on the antepenult by Oxonians (or British in general)?  

Finally, assuming there are such, what are the "moral equivalents" 
(actually I guess I mean "cultural functional equivalents") of "Old 
MacWhoever" in other languages?






--
Liland Brajant ROS'    			Ae, ka manu iluna oka hale,
P O Box 30091      			"O" ku'u leo "E moe maika'i," 
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono			Kani ku'u leo, ku'u hoapu,
Tel. (206) 633-2434  			Ae, ka manu iluna oka hale.
