phrase: "Hog-eyed man"
Sarah Bryan
Can someone tell me exactly what a hog-eyed man is? You know, the one
that Sally's always in the bed with, while Susan's in the garden sifting sand?
Maybe I've just led a sheltered life, but if I don't find out the significance
of a "hog-eyed man," I'm going to go crazy, maybe become Unabomber Jr., or
go work for the post office. Help me, before it's Too Late...
Sarah
--
"Que siga la tradicion" "One never knows, do one?"
--G. Estefan --Fats Waller
Oldtime1
Sarah, I spent a bit of my youth engaged in the keeping of swine as my
family killed 'em and et 'em. Their eyes are deep set and usually
downcast. They possibly saw pork hunger in our hillybilly faces and
avoided eye contact. I don't understand why Sally or any other woman
would wish to get into bed with a man with those attributes. So
investigate more. Call in Masters and Johnson. A classic recording of
those words is by Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers. The Missouri Friends of
the Folk Arts (Jim, Julia, Barry, Kathy, Jane) took me to see Tip McKinny,
the Ozark singer who did that 78 and recorded him on the great "I'm Old
But Awfully Tough" LP of Missouri oldtime. Wonderful guy, lots of uissued
songs in their archive. And I'll answer the whateverhappenedto: Jim Olin
is deceased, Barry Bergey works for the National Endowment for the Arts,
Julia Olin works with me, Jane Vidrine lives in Louisiana, plays Cajun
music (Arhoolie CD with Ann Savoy), does music work, and I married Kathy
James who does non-music work, but remains much involved in music. Joe
Wilson
John Garst
In article <4ngpob$kcv$1...@mhadg.production.compuserve.com>, Sarah Bryan
<76255...@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
According to Gershon Legman, a scholar of the bawdy, "hog-eye" refers to
the female genitals. You can draw your own conclusion, then, of what a
"hog-eye man" might be.
*********************************************************************
John Garst ga...@sunchem.chem.uga.edu
*********************************************************************
Laws of Tradition: (1) Nothing is ever lost.
(2) Nothing ever stays the same.
Bruce Reid
>According to Gershon Legman, a scholar of the bawdy, "hog-eye" refers to
>the female genitals. You can draw your own conclusion, then, of what a
>"hog-eye man" might be.
And this might explain why Sally's always in bed with him! ;-)
-WB
--
Disclaimer: all opinions expressed here are mine, not those of my employer
UUCP: {hplabs|ucsd}!hp-sdd!reid
Internet: re...@sdd.hp.com
W. Bruce Reid, 16399 W. Bernardo Dr., San Diego, Ca. 92127
David Lynch
> >According to Gershon Legman, a scholar of the bawdy, "hog-eye" refers to
> >the female genitals. You can draw your own conclusion, then, of what a
> >"hog-eye man" might be.
Still, this definition is general enough to lead me to several possible
conclusions. At the risk of delving into the ultra-bawdy, I'll try to ask
as delicately as possible:
More specifically, is a "hog-eyed" man:
1) A man who frequently interacts with numerous female genitaliae to the
degree that he has earned a reputation for doing so? (i.e. "That Bill sure
does get around with the ladies." "Yup, he's a bit of a hog-eyed man, all
right.")
2) Any man who interacts with female genitalia at a particular moment in
time? (i.e. "Where's Bill?" "He's hog-eyed at the moment, but he should
show up by morning.")
3) A man with expertise for pleasing a woman through talented interaction
with her genitalia? (i.e. "Since Sally got a taste of that hog-eyed man,
she won't give me the time of day.")
4) Some other interpretation I haven't pondered (or don't dare mention in
a public forum)?
--Namaste',
--David Lynch
--web: http://www.primenet.com/~dsl/
Check out the Old-Time Music Home Page:
http://www.primenet.com/~dsl/oldtime.html
"She says, 'You mean you play a violin?' I says, 'I try to'."
-- Luther Davis
Sarah Bryan
Here's yet another possibility, as suggested by My Mommy: it might
just be a corruption of hawk-eyed. Why didn't I come up with that one?
Kerry, Sheila, & Mirabelle Blech
In article <4nom36$fph$1...@mhade.production.compuserve.com>
> Sarah Bryan wrote:
>That's also the definition that I've heard for Cotton-Eyed Joe.
>
in her follow-up to:
>
>jm <10214...@CompuServe.COM> writes:
>> Someone somewhere told me that it hog-eyed refers to a
>> black man.
>> I have no idea why.
The most common explanation for the term "Cotton-eyed" that I have
heard was that the person had glaucoma or cataracts.
Something in the back of my brain keeps cropping up and tickling my
conscious about the term "hog-eyed." What it keeps informing me is
that someone long ago told me that it might refer to someone who is
"wall-eyed." Maybe it was a dream or hallucination, for I can find
no documentation on the subject in my mess, er, reference area.
Speaking of eyes, it has been noted that the great Black fiddler,
Jim Booker, who recorded in the '20s with the otherwise White
string band, Taylor's Kentucky Boys, had "weeping eyes," so that it
looked like he was constantly crying while he fiddled.
That is all,
Regards,
Kerry
****** ******** ******** ***** *****
Kerry Blech Sheila Klauschie Blech Mirabelle Rose Blech
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
"The old tunes are the best tunes" -- Luther Davis
jm
Someone somewhere told me that it hog-eyed refers to a black man.
I have no idea why.
--
John Mahony
"When it looks like everything's coming your way, chances are
you're in the wrong lane." Greg Root
Sarah Bryan
That's also the definition that I've heard for Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Paul J. Stamler
Gershon Legman's definition (hog-eye = female genitalia) may be correct,
but sometimes his interpretations have struck me as being either
far-fetched or a little too pat. (I think, for example, of his
interpretation of the popularity of lightbulb jokes as a response to
people's feelings of impotence in the face of the Arab oil boycott.)
Anyway, this is one of those definitions that may or may not be so.
Note that Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers recorded a 78 of "Hog Eye" that
refers to a "hog-eyed *gal*", not man. What, under Legman's definition,
would be a "hog-eyed gal"--a woman who was exceptionally sexually
active, available or desirable? Or any woman with a "hog-eye" (genitals)?
(Which makes no sense to me, since that means any female at all.) Or is
it really a slang term for "wall-eyed"?
I'm just throwing out queries here. The line in the song is "Row the boat
ashore with a hog-eye, hog-eye/Row the boat ashore with a hog-eye gal".
Peace.
Paul
Fred Pribac
Paul J. Stamler wrote:
> I'm just throwing out queries here. The line in the song is "Row the boat
> ashore with a hog-eye, hog-eye/Row the boat ashore with a hog-eye gal".
Then there's that english song, that I only poorly remember ... something
along the lines of:
"To me hog-eye, to me hog-eye-oh,
there goes the hog-eye man"
It might even be a shanty, I think it's called "The hog-eye man". My feeble
memory leads me to venture that this song has some similar verses to "Sally in
the Garden".
To me it sounds like "the hog-eye man" is slang for some
sort of profession.
cioa,
fred
ps. I hope somebody comes up with a convincing explanation soon,
I feel a strange compulsion to get to the bottom of this!
Paul M. Gifford
In article <4ngpob$kcv$1...@mhadg.production.compuserve.com> Sarah Bryan <76255...@CompuServe.COM> writes:
>Can someone tell me exactly what a hog-eyed man is? You know, the one
>that Sally's always in the bed with, while Susan's in the garden sifting sand?
>Maybe I've just led a sheltered life, but if I don't find out the significance
>of a "hog-eyed man," I'm going to go crazy, maybe become Unabomber Jr., or
>go work for the post office. Help me, before it's Too Late...
The _Dictionary of American Regional English_, vol. 2, gives examples from
Indiana, southwest Missouri, and North Carolina. The Indiana example means
"small-eyed"; the MO example says "facial expression resulting from looking
upward and sidewise without turning the head"; the NC example says "refers to
a character trait---someone who can see everything because they say a hog can
see the wind."
Paul
Bill Richardson
In early minstrel songs, a "hog-eye" was a jug of whiskey. One reference
I can easily recall is a line from Emmett's Road to Richmond:
The trader road upon a mule- labor never done
The hog-eye kept his temper cool- ten to one, never done, just begun.
This is an obsure narrative minstrel song about being bought and sold in
the slave trade. Like many of Emmett's pieces, it is fairly complex.
Old-time music as we know it (fiddle and clawhammer banjo) got an
incredible blast off from minstrel music, becoming the parent of nearly
every american music genre except maybe the blues.
Bill Richardson
Blacksburg, Va
Steve Goldfield
In article <4nq575$o...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>,
Bill Richardson <bill...@caspian.ext.vt.edu> wrote:
#>Old-time music as we know it (fiddle and clawhammer banjo) got an
#>incredible blast off from minstrel music, becoming the parent of nearly
#>every american music genre except maybe the blues.
#>
#>
#>Bill Richardson
#>Blacksburg, Va
Why make an exception of the blues? There appears to be good
evidence that the blues started on the banjo and then later
moved to the guitar. An interesting discussion on that comes
up in an interview with Etta Baker in "Step It Up and Go:
Blues in the Carolinas," which tries to show the relationship
and does a pretty good job. And we could probably say that
minstrel music got a big blastoff from old-time music, too.
Rather than single out the minstrels, what I'd identify as the
most significant phenomenon was the mixing and then fusion of
African and European (and Native American and probably others,
too) musical cultures into a more or less common American culture.
I think you could argue that the minstrels were popularizers of
that cultural fusion rather than the originators of it and make
a good case for it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Goldfield :-{ {-: s...@coe.berkeley.edu
University of California at Berkeley Richmond Field Station
"There is no limit to the capacity of humans for self-deception"
BanjerBob
Fer my 2 cents-
I been doing anesthesia in mostly black, urban areas of Philly for about
8 years now. Musta done >100 eye operations. While not common, many of the
older folks refer to this condition as "hog-eyed." As this is a very
common condition in the elderly, maybe it is just a reference to an older
person.
Bob W
Bill Richardson
> Why make an exception of the blues? There appears to be good
> evidence that the blues started on the banjo and then later
> moved to the guitar. An interesting discussion on that comes
> up in an interview with Etta Baker in "Step It Up and Go:
> Blues in the Carolinas," which tries to show the relationship
> and does a pretty good job. And we could probably say that
> minstrel music got a big blastoff from old-time music, too.
> Rather than single out the minstrels, what I'd identify as the
> most significant phenomenon was the mixing and then fusion of
> African and European (and Native American and probably others,
> too) musical cultures into a more or less common American culture.
> I think you could argue that the minstrels were popularizers of
> that cultural fusion rather than the originators of it and make
> a good case for it.
Steve, I don't doubt for a minute that the blues could have originated on
the banjo. Its a very bluesy instrument, and a delightful discovery to
see how naturally the blues can be played on a clawhammer banjo. But I
don't see the blues following from minstrel music.
There is a clear thread of blues in old-time music going back to at least
the turn of the century. White House Blues, for instance. Yes, blues has
been a part of old-time for a long time, but I wouldn't know where it
started being played by a fiddle and banjo.
As you know,the american minstrels took the black folk form of fiddle,
banjo, bones, and tambourine and turned it into a wildly successful and
popular new musical form. It became white music from that point on, just
like what happened to rock and roll 100 years later. It was the
ministrelry craze that spread the music around the country and made it
accesible to whites in general. They had an incredible burst of
creativity, writing and coalating songs that remain at the core of
old-time today, and folk music also.
Ministrelry led to vaudeville, being oriented towards stage performances.
Tinpan Alley songwriters had a natural outlet for their material in
minstrels and vaudville, and many of their songs found their way into folk
music.
Old-time music obviously began when the fiddle and the banjo found each
other. But don't deny the impact of minstrel music in its heyday. It was
wild. It was phenomenal. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Even
today, minstrel performances would be scandalous, for different reasons.
Bill Richardson
Blacksburg Virginia
Peter Feldmann
Bill Richardson wrote about Re: minstrel music and old-time:
>As you know,the american minstrels took the black folk form of fiddle,
>banjo, bones, and tambourine and turned it into a wildly successful and
>popular new musical form. It became white music from that point on, just
>like what happened to rock and roll 100 years later. It was the
>ministrelry craze that spread the music around the country and made it
It's my impression that commercial minstrel music could also be
characterized as *city* rather than *country* music, even though it may
originally have had country roots. For example, one can find hundreds, if
not thousands, of minstrel songs published as sheet music while very few
folk songs were published during the same period.
_Peter
-------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Feldmann * Blue Dalmatian Productions
feld...@seldon.terminus.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
Michael A. Starks, P.E.
Paul J. Stamler wrote:
>
> Note that Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers recorded a 78 of "Hog Eye" that
> refers to a "hog-eyed *gal*", not man.
For what it's worth - there are two towns named "Hogeye." One's in
Arkansas, the other in Texas according to Mapquest.
Mike Starks
John Garst
John Garst
<4np7db$j...@crl4.crl.com>psta...@crl.com (Paul J. Stamler)
> Gershon Legman's definition (hog-eye = female genitalia) may be correct,
> but sometimes his interpretations have struck me as being either
> far-fetched or a little too pat....
For the record, I think that I read this in Legman's recent edition of the
"unprintable" materials collected in the Ozarks by Vance Randolph. This
was issued in two volumes and really contains a *lot* of stuff.