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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: One for our side (gringo)
Message-ID: <805@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 22:48:40 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.805
Posted: Thu Nov 21 22:48:40 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 10:39:38 EST
References: <973@decwrl.UUCP> <12580@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 36
Summary: One can march to "Green Grow the Rushes"


In article <749@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes:
>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?

You have obviously never heard the song.  It has a very strong beat, and
could be marched to very easily.  As for inspiring them to do battle,
that is rather a secondary concern for marching songs.

>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."

Then again, they may well have sung this variant some large fraction of
the time.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108