[lit-ideas] Re: "Private Tommy Atkins" (Potter) from "A Gaiety Girl"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:56:27 EST
Andreas:
>Oddly enough, JL guessed at a word
>that he probably doesn't know. "Battle Rattle"
>is the name for all the stuff that soldiers carry
>into combat: their gear, weapons, supplies, etc.
Thanks. You've got a long way, girl, since the gird of the loin (those oiled
Spartakeias)
>Maybe JL can tell us the etymology of the word.
Well, I wasn't trying to be too original. And I don't see
the collocation 'battle rattle' in an advanced with the OED.
One quote has both words, though, and it's a pre-Great War song by one J. L.
-- Cuthbertson:
A song with a rattle that tells of the battle,
That tells of the knocks and the shocks of the That
Of kicks that slow-soaring go goalward, and scoring
May settle the fortune and fate of the day.
J. L. CUTHBERTSON
Carlton v. Geelong (1910) in
Barwon Ballads & School
Verses (1912) 303
Most of the info on "Tommy Atkins" I got from Morley Sheridan's "Spread a
little happiness: the first hundred years of the British musical", and, more
importantly (as it has photos of the original 1899 of the number, as
interpreted by Hayden Coffin), from Manderson and Mitchell (the gay couple),
"Musical
Comedy" book -- with an excellent forward by Noel Coward.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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