What is a "tramp's whisker"?

[wall...@kmsi.net]

In Laura Smith's "My Bonny" (a marvelous, powerful song, BTW) is the line
"I've got a tramp's whisker that tells me you still care."

It's driving me nuts! I could swear I've come across the term "tramp's
whisker" somewhere before, but I can't think where. Ideas, anyone?
Please?

/kenw

Ken Wallewein
Calgary, Alberta
ke...@kmsi.net

[Mwj1828]

Lol, that is a great song, but you are right. What in the world is she talking
about?

[Andy Copeman]

I think it might be a hair that grows from the facial region of a nomadic
vagabond ....

Sorry, couldn't resist. I habe no idea what it means in this context.
interesting though!

[Hojo2x]

Are you sure that "tramp's whisker" is actually the phrase that she's singing?

Wade Hampton Miller

[Paul Burke]

wall...@kmsi.net wrote:
>
> In Laura Smith's "My Bonny" (a marvelous, powerful song, BTW) is the line
> "I've got a tramp's whisker that tells me you still care."
>
> It's driving me nuts! I could swear I've come across the term "tramp's
> whisker" somewhere before, but I can't think where. Ideas, anyone?
> Please?
>

Sounds like a phrase Humphrey Littleton might use to describe an
infinitesimal timing error, as in the Pickup Song section of ISIHAC. But
I expect that doesn't get broadcast in Canada.

Could it be "whisper"?

Paul Burke

[wall...@kmsi.net]

Paul Burke <pa...@scazon.com> wrote:

>wall...@kmsi.net wrote:
>>
>> In Laura Smith's "My Bonny" (a marvelous, powerful song, BTW) is the line
>> "I've got a tramp's whisker that tells me you still care."
>>
>> It's driving me nuts! I could swear I've come across the term "tramp's
>> whisker" somewhere before, but I can't think where. Ideas, anyone?
>> Please?
>>
>
>Sounds like a phrase Humphrey Littleton might use to describe an
>infinitesimal timing error,

Interesting thought, but I don't think it fits the context. I think it's
intended more positively than that. Like a token or something.

>as in the Pickup Song section of ISIHAC. But
>I expect that doesn't get broadcast in Canada.

You're right; I've never heard of it before.

>Could it be "whisper"?

I googled ("Verbing wierds words" -- Calvin) for "tramp's whisker" and got
one hit: a transcription of part of the song, as part of an interview with
Laura. Presumably it's accurate. No hits using "whisper", though. No
other transcriptions of those lyrics at all, that I could find.

>Paul Burke

[David Rintoul]

Well, the words go like this, according to the Kingston Whig-Standard (if you
can't trust the Whig-Standard, who can you trust?)

Already there's such a chill in the air,
Someone's got a kite on the wind mating calling.
I've got a tramp's whisker that tells me you still care,
So bring back, bring back, bring back my bonny to me.

I have no idea what a tramp's whisker is, though.
--
David Rintoul
david....@sympatico.ca
http://www3.sympatico.ca/david.rintoul
"In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends."
J. Churton Collins

[John Rosier]

The term "tramp's whisker" means "close", "near" and is usually used
in the context of proximity to disaster (for instance, "the car was
out of control and its occupants came within a tramp's whisker of
being killed"). It in reasonably common use in areas of the UK,
although I can't explain its etymology.

I think, therefore, that the expression in the song is used ironically
to emphasise the faint hope of resurrecting the relationship with the
loved one.

John

[Onward Christian Snitchers, Marching into Hell for a Heavenly cause]

j.ro...@cableinet.co.uk (John Rosier) wrote in message news:<3b44d3d6...@news.blueyonder.co.uk>...

>
>
"That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, [and] that thou mayest obey
his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he [is] thy life,
and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which
the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
to give them." --Deuteronomy 30:20

Bless you, friend.

[leslie.j....@gmail.com]

To see Laura Smith's own explanation of the lyrics, please clock on this link and go down to the bottom of the discussion.....


http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=24235

[pmarq...@gmail.com]

I prefer "tramp's whisper." The poetic possibilities are enormous, including a lonely heart carrying the heavy weight of broken love who encounters one suffering even more than she. When our lonely heart bends to deposit a coin in the cup of the tramp, or whatever scenario we choose, he looks up to catch her eye, at which point she hears his whisper inside her head and she knows that 'he still cares.' don't ya just love poetry!

[hub...@ccanoemail.ca]

... some discussion here :

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=24235

John T.

[john.wi...@gmail.com]

You have to be a certain age to know what a tramp's whisker is. I'm 65 and happen to know. When I was a child my brother showed me how to make crystal radio. It involved a piece of galena, a mineral that could be used to make a primitive semiconductor, and a very fine wire - the finer the better. You would attach one end of a high impedance headphone to the wire (the ones that airmen used in the second world war) and the other end to the crystal. As you dragged the fine wire over the crystal, you would pick up radio stations. Voila, a crystal radio.

To the point. The fine wire was referred to as a "tramp's whisker"

If I remember correctly; "I have a tramp's whisker that says you still care". It' is a very poetic statement! She had a means of reading his hidden thoughts from a distance, like a radio signal.

John W. Ottawa

[john.wi...@gmail.com]

[Ian Jackson]

In message <b7d23ea6-8bb9-4bc0...@googlegroups.com>,
john.wi...@gmail.com writes

In the UK (and almost certainly worldwide, including the USA), this is
known as a 'cat's whisker' (which may, or may not, be a more accurate
description). I've never heard of the term 'tramp's whisker'.
--
Ian