Did the French win the American Revolution?

 

Originally posted by drgonzaga Just which Armada are you speaking about, 2003?

The one sent by Philip II in 1588 under Medina Sidonia after Bazan died. That's the one the phrase normally refers to.

 

I repeat my question: are you suggesting that Armada succeeded in its mission?

 

The defeat of the Armada was of course merely winning a battle (of sorts) not an entire war. I'm not aware of anyone who claims it was.

 

In effect it was similar to the Battle of Britain in 1940 - a decisive defensive engagement, but not the same as winning WW2.

 

The point here is much the same as with the original posit on the thread: a contention that can not be sustained by the documentary evidence. When you look at the documents, you would realize that the English did not even have enough gunpowder to engage the Armada as it made its way north along the coast!

 

You have a funny idea of 'north'. It's an irrelevant question anyway as the English did not try to engage the Armada except sporadically and at a distance. There's more to winning naval engagements than gunpowder.

 

Let us be blunt, as with much else dealing with the condition of England in the 16th century one can not escape the fact that historical reality does not jive with the bluster.

 

Of course, in the sense that in terms of finance further effort against the colonial/rabble would not hold promise of balancing the government books.  In a way, one can posit a good argument that as part of overall administrative centralisation, the crown in Parliament had sought to integrate both taxation and the customs system so as to regularize revenues into the Exchequer. That these efforts were also undertaken domestically and proved highly unpopular within the economy of the United Kingdom should also be kept in mind. After all, in looking at the Spanish, the English observed that the costs of imperial administration were covered by the colonial economies and these regions also bore the expenses for their own defense (a domestic military as well as a coast guard). Why not the various English establishments? There are also other factors that should be placed into the equation, not least of which was the nature of English trade in the Atlantic.

 

 

 

Originally posted by drgonzaga Ah, gcl, just as Froggy went a-courtin', you went a-referencing, and still missed the beat: honkies jitterbugged while the brothas jived!

I was there. You weren't even in high school.

 

For that matter you can't have even seen any films of the period. Jitterbuggers came in all colours. So did jivers.

Further, the roots of rock-and-roll are not found in Bill Haley

I never said they were, so that's simply an evasive straw man. The rock'n'roll DANCE is mid-fifties and was popularised in the Haley era. Where the musical roots are is a totally different discussion.

but in the rhythm and blues of the Mississippi Delta (from Memphis to the Balize so to speak). It is funny that even today, some just do not want to admit the African roots of much of popular music--the Cubans did so long ago but Americans remain reticent even when it concerns such things as the shimey and the rag.

You're blathering.

That we have gone off-topic is regrettable, but here is another tidbit over the Armada--in actual battle. the English only "captured" four vessels of the Spanish fleet (all straggler that had fallen out of formation).

Edited by gcle2003 - 29-Dec-2007 at 15:40

 

Originally posted by drgonzaga Speaking of blathering...a ten year difference in age is not much

 

It is with something as age-critical as slang. And dance steps.

and this assumption--   For that matter you can't have even seen any films of the period. Jitterbuggers came in all colours. So did jivers.   -- is hilarious; what Hollywood portrayed and forms part of cinematic history is something else entirely.

I was thinking of newsreels and documentaries. Bringing in Hollywood is resorting to another straw man. In general though, in producing films for teenagers Hollywood itself tended to be in accord with fashion or the films wouldn't sell.

By the way, the "rock'n'roll" dance of the 50s is nothing more than the "Lindy" unless you want to get into the techniques of line dancing!

Line dancing has nothing to do with it whatsoever. I'll grant the Lindy Hop was the precursor of all the dances that involved a couple dancing semi-separately (i.e. not holding each other as with the waltz or strict ballroom dances) but line dances have a completely different ancestry.

Give it up man, I am a creole and find your schtick amusing. Jive as a word existed long before its association with dancing and is not "native" to the New York of  the 1920s.

The point was you misused it to mean 'jibe' - come into alignment with.

It never means that in any slang version.

 

At the beginning (as I wrote) I assumed a typo. You've made it more evident since that it was simply a mistaken understanding.

 

Incidentally you still haven't answered my question about the Armada, or should that be transferred now to the thread on the Anglo-Spanish war?

 

Originally posted by drgonzaga Your assumption on misuse is incorrect. The juxtaposition of jitterbug and jive had nothing to do with alignment

Of course it damned well didn't. Stop trying to wriggle out by obfuscating what was actually written.

 

You specifically wrote: "as with much else dealing with the condition of England in the 16th century one can not escape the fact that historical reality does not jive with the bluster.".

 

That is blatantly, obviously and beyond doubt a mistake. It means quite clearly 'historical reality cannot be aligned with the bluster', which is perfectly conveyed by 'jibe' and is totally wrong for any variant of 'jive'.

 

It came incidentally after your statement that "the English did not even have enough gunpowder to engage the Armada as it made its way north along the coast!" which you probably picked up from some quick internet dipping, and thought wouod make a nice piece of rhetoric, without bothering to check out what actually happened.

 

It is true that after Gravelines the English fleet was very short of ammunition (not specifically gunpowder) and therefore stopped harrassing the Spanish so closely once the Armada had begun its flight into the North Sea - e.g. once the Spanish had accepted defeat and were no longer a threat.

 

They could have reprovisioned (their home ports were close enough) but there wasn't any longer any need to do so.

and you choose to persist in ignoring the racial overtones of the distinction.

I didn't ignore the 'racial overtones' of the distinction between jitterbugging and jiving, I denied there were any. Both dances were popular with both blacks and whites, and there's plenty of evidence of that.

Perhaps the allusion to dance confused you as was apparent from your reaction to the mention of "line dancing"...nevertheless your reaction does substantiate my original point.

I wasn't anything like as confused as you seem to be. Line dancing has nothing in common with either jitterbugging or jiving (or the Lindy Hop or any other of their precursors). It's roots go back if anywhere to the formal dances of the early modern dances of Europe. And it's not even danced to any kind of jazz.

 

Did you ever see a line dance?

 

The fact that you brought it in to the thread shows both how you try and confuse issues when you are losing, and how little you know about the subject.

Which brings me to this strange observation: "I was thinking of newsreels and documentaries. Bringing in Hollywood is resorting to another straw man."   Just who the heck sponsored and bankrolled the genre, Mickey Mouse? Sorry for the sarcasm but both Path� (1909) and Movietone News (dating from 1913 and the product of the film-maker Fox) formulated the medium as an adjunct to the evolving motion picture industry.

Path� was 1908 and started in France.

 

Some of the newsreel companies were associated with companies that produced feature films. However the actual shooting and dealing in newsreel footage, especially internationally, was handled largely by specialist intermediary agencies, just as was and is true of still news photography.

 

Why be 'sorry for the sarcasm'? Why not just give up on the 'sarcasm'? You're being read by a sophisticated audience here: sarcasm doesn't do anything but weaken your case.

Just the term alone, Newsreel is sufficient to assert the origins of the genre.

It was concerned with news and the film was rolled on reels. What's that got to do with anything? It was shot on film. That's the ultimate in blathering, to try and make something out of reels of news film being called 'newsreels'.

Both content and distribution was as influenced by the corporate mind of Hollywood as any motion picture. Thus, the assertion is hardly a straw-man by the mere mention of Hollywood.

The point is that you were trying to smear by association, using 'Hollywood' as a pejorative, indicating 'untrustworthy'. 'Hollywood' is in fact NOT synonymous with 'the film industry'.

 

You could simply have said 'Documentaries and newsreels cannot be trusted'. And possibly given some reason to accept the statement, with regard to the coverage of popular dancing in the 30s-50s.

 

I need only mention that quite early the association between production films and newsreels as being the capture of history formed part of popular imagination. After seeing The Birth of a Nation in 1915, Woodrow Wilson declared: "That is how it really was!" I doubt it necessary to comment that even contemporary newsreels and documentaries lie in their exposition of material.

Well, you both certainly know more than I about both the Armada and early-mid twentieth-century dance. Thus, the only thing I find myself capable of weighing in on is the debate over the use of the terms "jibe" and "jive":

 

And the winner is *drumroll*... gcle_2003! Typos are nothing to be ashamed of or deny, dr. gonzaga; we all make mistakes from time to time -- well, except for me, of course.

 

-Akolouthos

 

For Akolouthos:

 

In American colloquial jive has several strata of meaning including "agreement" and in Southern English it is used to signal agreement or accordance.

 

e.g. A soup without okra just does not jive with gumbo! Within a Black context (and here the reason for the musical) jive was authentic and jittterbug was false. No matter how hard gcl strains on this toilet he can not deny this sense of the expression: A does not jive with B.

 

The bottom line here is a simple one, myths of Nationalist origins, and in this instance the English belabouring of the Armada is a classic example, seldom reflect the actual situation. Further, it is a situation similar to what may be said of Lepanto. Oh, it was a marvelous encounter but in truth it settled little.  

 

 

I was born and raised in New Orleans, the land of "where you at" and other dialectic and lingusitic eccentricities arising in a cultural pot far older than that of the New York of the 20s or 30s, and all I can say is that I was most amused by all of the pseudo-pedantic gyrations over what constitutes correct usage of regional colloquialisms with long histories. 

 

Originally posted by drgonzaga Well, Akolouthos what I can not understand is all the unctuousness over usage when even Wiki underscores the distinctions:   http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jive

Did you bother to read it?

It says (actual words) '"Jive" and "jibe" are frequently used interchangeably in the U.S. to indicate the concept "to agree or accord". However, while one recent dictionary accepts this usage, most sources consider this an error.'

 

Basically, a common error is being perpetuated here. As I posted before the fact that other people make the same mistake doesn't stop it being a mistake.

I was born and raised in New Orleans

Not your fault, but what has that to do with anything? Nowadays New Orleans is English-speaking.

 

, the land of "where you at" and other dialectic and lingusitic eccentricities arising in a cultural pot far older than that of the New York of the 20s or 30s, and all I can say is that I was most amused by all of the pseudo-pedantic gyrations over what constitutes correct usage of regional colloquialisms with long histories.

Edited by gcle2003 - 31-Dec-2007 at 18:56