There was a recent brilliant mention in another thread, of 'mercenaries' and
one's stepfathrer's truck -- LOVED it. It reminded me of the Great War and
before. When "A Gaiety Girl: a musical comedy" opened -- NOT at the Gaiety, the
first verse for an interpolation (by Potter) mentions one big implicature: the
big shilling. Note the rhymes:
It doesn't matter who he was before,
Or what his parents fancied for his name,
Once he's pocketed the shilling
and a uniform he's filling
We call him Tommy Atkins all the same.
---- That was late nineteenth-century. The verse became famous enough to be
used in an orchestral format by Coward for his medley for "Cavalcade".
What it also reminded me was some sort of discovery. "I'll make a man of anyone
of you" one would think as a Great War. It was however written and already
being performed in the halls in 1913, so I wonder (vide McEvoy on Carr on
Predictability in History).
Now it's the REFRAINS that make an implicature of the shilling. Or rather, an
EXplicature of the shilling that carries one implicature or two. Again, note
the rhymes. I quote the two versions of the refrains (I can't see how the
audience was supposed to join in the chorus if it kept changing, but I suppose
the "cum-audience" reprise was the first version.
The lady in question is passing review (or is it revue) of what she does during
the seven days of the week -- I think on Sunday she sleeps. In any case, it's
the rhyme at the end of what she days on Friday that rhymes with the 'you' of
the song title:
On Friday the Captain of the crew
But on Saturday I'm willing
if you'll only take the shilling
To make a man of any one of you.
On Friday a Midshipman or two
But on Saturday I'm willing
if you'll only take the shilling
To make a man of any one of you.
A shilling was perhaps UK (not EU)'s greatest invention (cfr. the cotton gin).
I was referring to the 'ideal-type' of "Tommy Atkins": "We call him Tommy
Atkins all the same" "no matter what his parents fancied for his name" (say
John Clayton -- as in "The legend of Tarzan"). The idea is that the 'we' is too
neutral. The singer was supposed a captain in the barracks outside London. So
the implicature is that even a captain would call a private Tommy Atkins. I
think "Tommy Atkins" can be drawn back to the writing of army manuals and the
need for a proper name (cfr. Legalese for John Doe -- of course historians will
say, and did say, that there WAS one Thomas Atkins -- hypochorically referred
to as "Tommy" -- "Call me anything but "Tommy"!").
Privates were usually the topic of music-hall ditties ("Private Tommy Atkins"
is a musical-comedy interpolation, rather, and, "I'll make a many of anyone of
you") comes from a revue. Dan Leno I think specialized in them -- "territorial"
being his favourite singing word.
The previous generation may have been more romantic about the whole enterprise
(vide Weatherley, "Where are the men of the old Brigade?").
Oddly, Grice (Capt, RN) once had a philosophical argument, alla Kant, with
Philippa Foot, another Oxonian philosopher. The polemic was resolved by D.
Keane of Seattle. Foot was arguing that in the moral fight, it does matter what
your credentials are. Grice, as a retired captain from the Royal Navy (he was
involved in operations in the North Atlantic during the so-called "Second World
War") argued that credentials were irrelevant. Once you are in the fight, it
doesn't count if you have been drafted, if you are a private, a captain, a
general, or what have you -- in terms of the imperatives that the 'moral fight'
alla Kant involves. Foot, who was not a private, had to accept that Grice's
implicature was correct. This is all metaphorical, and one should check the
correct wording by Grice. But the idea is that 'volunteer' versus 'drafted'
becomes irrelevant -- once you are fighting the good fight -- as the lyrics of
the Salvation Army hymn go --. So if this Captain in "A Gaiety Girl" calls
"Tommy Atkins" to one "John Clayton," say, his implicature must be other. The
"I'll make a man of anyone of you" is conditional: but on Saturday I'm willing
IF you only take the shilling. It was a parody of a recruit song. Parody is an
implicature which may have have missed by some, who took the ditty AS a recruit
song itself!
"Private Tommy Atkins" on the other hand, was interpolated on the fourth
performance of "Gaiety Girl" for non-militaristic reasons -- even if it became
a hymn of the Boer War: none of the other songs had a BIT of a tune, and
Coffin, the tenor, wanted a solo! But the militaristic, if odd, implicature is
that once the shilling is pocketed, the individuation does no longer count.
This reminds me of a marine anecdote recently reported in the NYT regarding a
famous photo of a few marines holding a flag immortalized, as they say, in a
photograph, later turned a monument, etc. It has been recently discovered that
one of the marines had been misidentified by name. A marine said, "Who cares?
As a marine, [proper names alla Kripke] don't matter. It's the group spirit
that counts." The research to identify the name of the marine was prompted by a
published essay written by the son of a marine who THOUGHT his father was the
one being photographed, when (apparently, to echo Popper) he wasn't.
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
