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From: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: One for our side (gringo)
Message-ID: <826@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 14:32:09 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.826
Posted: Mon Nov 18 14:32:09 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 00:19:44 EST
References: <973@decwrl.UUCP> <12580@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Organization: Ohio State Univ., CIS Dept., Cols, Oh.
Lines: 56

In article <749@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes:
>> 
>> >  I've never heard of answer to "where did 'gringo' come from?" that
>> >had any finality to it.  One proposed source was that American (United
>> >States-ian:-) soldiers sang a song entitled "Green Grow the Rushes".
>> 
>> That's the story.  Supposedly it happened just after Texas joined
>> the Union, and the Mexicans wanted something other than "tejanos"
>> to call the newcomers who were invading their country in the latest war.
>> The song was popular at that time (1845?) and the troops from the north
>> sang it as they marched.
>> 
>> It's not proven, but it's pretty plausible.
>> 
>> John Quarterman,   UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq
>
>I looked up "Green Grow the Rushes, Ho" in the "Fireside Book of Folk Songs".
>It didn't seem to me to be the type of song soldiers would sing, for marching
>or otherwise.  Here are the first couple of verses:
>
>	I'll sing you one-ho!
>	Green grow the rushes-ho.
>	What is your one-ho?
>	One is one and all alone,
>	And evermore shall be so.
...
>Doesn't exactly sound like a marching song that would help the soldiers keep
>cadence and inspire them to do battle, does it?  Then I looked in the
>"Dictionary of Word Origins" by Joseph T. Shipley.  It says:
>
>	"'Gringo' is the term Mexicans gave the American (English).  It may
>	 be from Sp. 'griego', Greek (as in 'It's Greek to me.'); but it is
>	 commonly supposed to be from the opening words of a song by Burns,
>	 popular with the soldiers in the Mexican War:
>		Green grow the rashes O
>		The happiest hours that ere I spent
>		Were spent among the lasses O.
>	Soldier themes vary little down the ages."
>
>This is a little more plausible.  It's still not a marching song, but I
>can imagine soldiers singing it.  Most folksongs have many versions, and the
>"Fireside Book of Folk Songs" recorded one that was suitable for the kids.
>
>"Fireside" contains another song, "Green Grow the Lilacs".  It says that it
>is an old Irish song popular with the early Texas cowboys, and that the
>Mexicans got the word "gringo" from the opening words.
>Now we have three hypotheses, with no substantiation for any of them.
>-- 
 The last hypothesis is the most common. The two different "Green grow
the Rushes-Oh"s are totally different, in tune as well as words, one being
a composed song to a folk tune, words by Robert Burns, and the other being
a folk song. It is likely, however, that Burns merely cleaned it up for
polite consumption, so it may have been really obscene once - a lot of
Scots songs were, both before and after Burns got to them. 

Elizabeth D. Zwicky