Then there is the reference to caterpillars that produce silk...
RA
> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:29:34 -0800
> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
> From: howardpos...@ca.rr.com
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: catgut
>
> On Dec 27, 2010, at 6:51 AM, Roman Turovsky wrote:
>
> > That's tasty food for thought to catgut integralists on this list,
and a bite out
> > of their ideal of authenticity.
> > I already imagine Dan Larson chasing a suitable kitty, because
Anthony Hind has just ordered a set.
> > RT
>
> Morris' pseudo-etymological conjecture (hardly unique to him) may be
plausible for fiddlers, but any lutenist who could manage to make his
instrument sound like a cat of any kind would have my enduring respect.
>
>
> A thousand pardons if I've asked this before, but is string material
called "cat" gut in French, German, or Italian?
>
>
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jaroslaw Lipski"
<jaroslawlip...@wp.pl>
> > To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
> > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 9:34 AM
> > Subject: [LUTE] catgut
> >
> >
> >> Although this subject was discussed couple of month ago, quite
unexpectedly I found an interesting information in a book on cats which
casts some new light on this term. In "Cat watching" Desmond Morris
asks why sheep gut should be perversely referred to as catgut, and
suggests that the clue lies in the earliest use of the term. At the
beginning of the seventeenth century, one author wrote of fiddlers
"tickling the dryed gutts of a mewing cat". Later we hear of a man
upset "at every twang of the cat-gut, as if he heard at the moment the
wailing of the helpless animal that had been sacrificed to harmony".
These references come from a period when domestic cats were all too
often the victims of persecution and torture, and the sound of
squealing cats was not unfamiliar to human ears. In addition, there was
the noise of the caterwauling at times when feral tomcats were arguing
over females in heat. Together, these characteristic feline sounds
provided the obvious basis for a !
> comparison with the din created by inexpert musicians scraping at
their stringed instruments. In the imaginations of the tormented
listeners, the inappropriate sheep gut became transformed into the
appropriate catgut - a vivid fiction to replace a dull fact (as he
suggests).
> >> Hmm.......quite interesting...though he didn't enclose any
bibliography (pity!).
> >>
> >> Best wishes for the coming New Year!
> >>
> >> Jaroslaw Lipski
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> To get on or off this list see list information at
> >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
> >
> >
>
>
> --
--
