Art Scott ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Deryk Barker wrote:
>(transcribing Flanders & Swann's "A Song of Reproduction")
>
>>"With the tone control, at a single touch, Bel canto sounds like
>>double Dutch. The I never did care for music much, it;s the High
>>Fidelity."
>
>Having carefully listened to it again, I believe that should be,
>
>"bel canto sounds like Donald Dutch [Duck]"
>
>which makes more sense, and is funnier.

No, sorry, but it *is* "double Dutch" and for two reasons:  firstly it
rhymes with "touch", which "duck" certainly wouldn't (and "Donald Dutch"
"makes more sense"? It doesn't make any sense at all); secondly, "double
dutch" is a well-established English idiom meaning "gibberish", so it fits
perfectly and, IMHO, the original is very funny.

F&S had a distinct "Englishness" about them; in an age when US Culture
is sweeping all before it and threatening to turn the world into a giant
McDonald's, this is something to celebrate and revisionist rewriting of
their lyrics is something to be resisted.

Deryk Barker
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