Words and Confusion in Teaching and Calling

Installment 1, sound-alikes

by Jim Saxe

On April 26, I wrote: "I'm looking for examples of ill-chosen words and phrases used in calling or teaching contradances and/or ("traditional") square dances. I'm particularly interested in words that can lead to choreographic confusion because they sound like something else, because they have more than one plausible interpretation, or for some other reason."

Below is the beginning of a summary of the examples given in the responses I've received, together with examples I've accumulated from my own dancing and calling experience. But first some comments and caveats.

The examples given below and in the later installments to follow should be read with a critical eye. Ideally, they would clearly illustrate direct connections between poorly chosen words on the part of callers and confusion on the part of dancers. In practice the words reported may not be what a caller actually said, but only what the caller remembers having said or what a dancer remembers having heard. Any confusion that was later observed may have been due to a variety of causes, which might or might not relate to the caller's choice of particular words.

For example, the caller may have chosen inappropriate material, failed to understand the dance thoroughly before presenting it, failed to verify that all dancers were correctly positioned after each figure in the walk-through, or failed to maintain the dancers' attention. Or other words that the caller said earlier than the ones reported might have sowed the seeds of confusion. Or the words in the example might be words that some caller avoids (or that somebody thinks callers should avoid) for fear that they *might* cause confusion.

The same words that are effective with one group of dancers may be ineffective with another group. Alternative "better" wordings suggested in some of the examples may not actually be more effective in a given situation than the original "bad" wordings. Contorting your teaching in order to avoid the words used in a "bad" example - or in order to set the context for some clever bit of "good" phrasing - may do more harm than good. In short, these examples and any associated commentary are no substitute for your good judgment.

I've made some attempt to group the examples into categories _ sound-alikes (covered in this message), ambiguities, timing problems, etc. - but many of the examples could equally well fit into two or more categories. In such cases I've made somewhat arbitrary decisions, being more concerned with writing the examples down that with devising an ideal system of classification,

My thinking about words to use in teaching and calling dances has benefited (I hope) from interactions with many dancers, musicians, and callers over the years, and I won't even attempt to list them all. Of course none of the above-mentioned individuals necessarily subscribes the opinions expressed in what follows. In fact, I'm not so sure about some of those opinions myself. But enough preamble. On to the examples.

Here are some examples involving sound-alike words--words that sound similar to other words because they share a syllable or even a vowel sound. Note that not all these examples necessarily involve ill-chosen words. In some cases the potential problems might be avoided by more careful enunciation or more careful teaching rather than by a different choice of words.

• "A!" - directing the band that they should now be starting the A part of the music, but heard by dancers as "Hey!"
• "Centers" - pronounced as "c'en'rs" and thus potentially heard as "ends". I noticed this one while listening to a tape of my own calling and hearing what I thought at first was "ends arch ends dive." I don't remember actually seeing problems during the dance, so perhaps an effective walk-through made up for my later sloppy enunciation.
• "Ladies change" - heard as "Ladies chain."
• "End ladies chain" - intended to mean a diagonal chain by two ladies at the ends of facing lines of four during a square dance, but heard as "and ladies chain," setting all the ladies into motion (this despite a successful walk-through with just the end ladies chaining at that point in the dance).
• "Four in line", and "Forward and back" - to tell the dancers what to do after the two swings in a dance. Prompts with unique first syllables (e.g., "down the hall" vs. "long lines") are better.
• "On the corner, allemande left" - I'm not sure about the origin of the term "On the/your corner" (at the corner of the square?). In any case I once saw a dancer who evidently heard "on" as "honor," taking a quick bow to his corner before the allemande each time this call was used.
• "Partner" and "Corner" - easily mistaken for each other in a noisy hall, especially if the call is something like "Allemande left your partner." The old gender-biased expression "corner lady" actually served a practical purpose in distinguishing these terms, since the expression "partner lady" was not used.
• "Start ..." - "... a right and left through", "... a hey", etc., heard as "Star".
• "Switch" - heard as "swing" when shouted from the sidelines to tell a pair of dancers that they were out of position.
• "With" - potentially heard as "swing" in phrases like "With your corner, allemande left."

• "Balance forward and back" - in a ring of eight. Understood by some dancers as an eight-count "forward and back" during the walk-through and danced that way (despite use of the call "balance" without "forward and back") during the dance, thus turning the timing for the following figures into a scramble.
• "Do-si-do" - an old traditional name in the south and west for the figure now called "do-paso" and numerous variants, easily confused with the New England do-si-do (the latter being referred to as "back to back" in English country dance, and as "do SA do" in modern western square dance), even when the caller takes pains to be explicit about the distinction during the teaching.
• "It's a long swing" - leading some dancers to form long lines immediately on hearing the word "long."
• "Go right into ..." - "... a left hand star" or other figure.
• "right hand star" and "right and left through" - said with "right and" and "right hand" having simila cadence and dynamics.
• "Go 'round - continuing with something like "... that big 'ol ring" as patter during a grand right and left, but leading dancers to expect "... your own and the other way back."
• "Star thru" - suggesting "star" to dancers not familiar with this inaplty named (in my opinion) figure borrowed from modern western square dancing.
• "Swing thru" - suggesting "swing" to dancers not familiar with this inaplty named (in my opinion) figure borrowed from modern western square dancing.

• "Don't get below those two's" - said to keep the swinging active couples in Chorus Jig from drifting down the set, but apparently causing more dancers than ever to cast out through the wrong spaces when the word "don't" got lost in the din.
• "Ladies chain over but not back" - heard as "Ladies chain mumble mumble back."

• "Chain the ladies."
• "Half ladies chain."
• "It's a short swing."
• "Duck ..."
• "Space out along the lines."
• [From English country dance:] "Skip "

Thanks to all the people who've help me compile the examples in this message and in the messages to follow, either by their responses to my queries on rec.folk-dancing or through recent private conversations. These include: Bob Archer, Jenny Beer, Bo Bradham, Roger Broseus, Ron Buchanan, Harold Cheyney, Brent Chivers, Charlie Fenton, Jim Fownes, Michael Fuerst, Anne Hillman, Donna Howell, Larry Jennings, Jon Leech, Alan Gedance, Jonathan Griffiths, Jackie Hoffman, Paul Marsh, Greg McKenzie, David Millstone, Russell Owen, Obejoyful, Ted Swift, Tony Parkes, Dan Pearl, Ted Swift, Kiran Wagle, and perhaps others whose names I've inadvertently omitted.

Stay tuned for Installment 2.

Jim Saxe <saxe@src.dec.com>