Re: Stranger in a strange land


Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Richard Herring wrote:

In message <43FDD944.6ACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Peter T. Daniels

One hates to sound like E. D. Hirsch, but how does one become a
25-year-old American ca. 1990 without ever having heard of
Belshazzar's Feast?

When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my
highschool that went

Now King Belshazzar took delight in
Starting wars and doing fighting.
Sons of Israel he called scamps,
And he sent them off to work in concentration camps.

Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel,
Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.

Google doesn't know about it.

Me either, but I'm ca. 15 years younger than you.

It can't have been a very traditional song, because "concentration camp"
didn't exist before 1945!

Um. The term "concentration camp" has been in use at least since the
Boer War.

The Boer War wasn't exactly high in the consciousnesses of American
teenagers in either 1952 or 1967.

Granted, but _assuming_ that the song was composed around then is
putting cart before horse.

Not given the specific reference to "sons of Israel."

This ditty is based on a story from the Book of Daniel, in which, I
believe, Hebrews were involved.


I took it as a calque of Konzentrationslager.

Vice versa.

References? M-W has (1901) -- toward the _end_ of the Boer War. What
were they up to?

Rounding up Afrikaner women and children (whose men were away fighting
the Brits) and keeping them in...uh, concentration camps. Quite a few
thousand died as a result.
By the 1930s the term was well enough established to be applied to
comparable institutions maintained by both the Nazis and the Soviets
(Bertrand Russell, 1935). Although all OED's pre-WWII citations are
British, I would be surprised if it were unknown on the other side of
the Atlantic at that time.

Ross Clark

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Stranger in a strange land
    ... Peter T. Daniels wrote in message ... Peter T. Daniels wrote: ... When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my ... Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Stranger in a strange land
    ... In message, Peter T. Daniels ... When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my ... Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Stranger in a strange land
    ... Peter T. Daniels wrote: ... Peter T. Daniels wrote in message ... When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my ... Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Stranger in a strange land
    ... When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my ... Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel, ... It can't have been a very traditional song, because "concentration camp" ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Stranger in a strange land
    ... When I was a 15-year-old American ca. 1952, we sang a song in my ... And he sent them off to work in concentration camps. ... Mene, mene, tekel, tekel, tekel, ...
    (sci.lang)
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