On Dec 27, 2010, at 6:51 AM, Roman Turovsky wrote: > That's tasty food for thought to catgut integralists on this list, and a bite > out > of their ideal of authenticity. > I already imagine Dan Larson chasing a suitable kitty, because Anthony Hind > has just ordered a set. > RT
Morris' pseudo-etymological conjecture (hardly unique to him) may be plausible for fiddlers, but any lutenist who could manage to make his instrument sound like a cat of any kind would have my enduring respect. A thousand pardons if I've asked this before, but is string material called "cat" gut in French, German, or Italian? > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jaroslaw Lipski" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 9:34 AM > Subject: [LUTE] catgut > > >> Although this subject was discussed couple of month ago, quite unexpectedly >> I found an interesting information in a book on cats which casts some new >> light on this term. In "Cat watching" Desmond Morris asks why sheep gut >> should be perversely referred to as catgut, and suggests that the clue lies >> in the earliest use of the term. At the beginning of the seventeenth >> century, one author wrote of fiddlers "tickling the dryed gutts of a mewing >> cat". Later we hear of a man upset "at every twang of the cat-gut, as if he >> heard at the moment the wailing of the helpless animal that had been >> sacrificed to harmony". These references come from a period when domestic >> cats were all too often the victims of persecution and torture, and the >> sound of squealing cats was not unfamiliar to human ears. In addition, there >> was the noise of the caterwauling at times when feral tomcats were arguing >> over females in heat. Together, these characteristic feline sounds provided >> the obvious basis for a ! comparison with the din created by inexpert musicians scraping at their stringed instruments. In the imaginations of the tormented listeners, the inappropriate sheep gut became transformed into the appropriate catgut - a vivid fiction to replace a dull fact (as he suggests). >> Hmm.......quite interesting...though he didn't enclose any bibliography >> (pity!). >> >> Best wishes for the coming New Year! >> >> Jaroslaw Lipski >> >> >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > --
