Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Day 213 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "An old English song is revamped in American colleges. Spoken final lines are improvised, as follows, "The Q is silent as in electricity," or "The bee is not mentioned as in bumble or honey," and so on."
[from the Traditional Ballad Index] "The only part of this I'll try to explain is the line about "the 'G' is silent as in 'fish.'" This may go back to [George Bernard] Shaw, who proposed to spell the word fish "ghoti." Other verses and other conclusions (e.g. "The Q is silent as in electricity") make even less sense."
Day 213 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "An old English song is revamped in American colleges. Spoken final lines are improvised, as follows, "The Q is silent as in electricity," or "The bee is not mentioned as in bumble or honey," and so on."
[from the Traditional Ballad Index] "The only part of this I'll try to explain is the line about "the 'G' is silent as in 'fish.'" This may go back to [George Bernard] Shaw, who proposed to spell the word fish "ghoti." Other verses and other conclusions (e.g. "The Q is silent as in electricity") make even less sense."
