Post by Joseph CurtinI, too, tend to question things that exist only on the "'Net". On the other
hand, some references on the Net point to actual physical publications,
which carry a much greater weight.
<snip>
I apologize: I didn't mean to give a flip reply to your post. Of course the
sources you cited are more reliable than just a web site.
My problem with the whole issue is that, in my world, people do not say that
"So-and-so has swing." Had I lived during the Swing Era it might have been
different. As it is, I came in on the tail end of it and was no stranger to
it, growing up, but even so, it didn't occur to me what the OP meant.
In the context of Sinatra, the sentence makes perfect sense and I understand
it completely. I suppose I could say the same thing of Ella, Ellington,
Miller and a whole host of others.
If someone -- not a musician or someone overtly fond of Big Band Era music --
said to me "Does So-and-so have swing?" I would have to wonder whether
they're asking me if that so-and-so had a child's swing set in their yard, or
if they waddled from side to side when they walk, or even -- Gasp! -- if
so-and-so and their spouse engaged in wife-swapping, since in today's context
those are the first things that come to mind when I think of the word
"swing," and not knowing whether a noun or a verb is implied.
See, even my friend Eddie, the bass player, who's the Coolest Dude I know,
doesn't have swing. His music swings -- he's the best -- but it would never
occur to me to say that *he* has swing.
For whatever reason the OP was inexplicably and fussily adamant about not
providing a context for the question and since we're a long way from the '30s
and '40s it never occurred to me that that could be the context. Also it made
me think of how certain English words get carried into Italian -- usually
gerunds, it seems -- and end up with different but related meanings to what
they mean in English. "Parking" and "camping" come to mind.
At any rate, I meant no disrespect to you, Joe.
And now I'm off to overeat... Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who
celebrate it.
--
Joe/Joey da New York
English as she is spoken (and sometimes written) in the US