Patter
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Practiced speech, often rapid
For other uses, see
magician, and comedian
.
The term may have been a colloquial shortening of "
prayers
quickly and mechanically.
From this, it became a slang word for the secret and equally incomprehensible mutterings of a
card magicians
, use patter both to enhance the show and to distract the attention of the spectators.
In some circumstances, the talk becomes a different sense of "patter": to make a series of rapid strokes or pats, as of raindrops. Here, it is a form of onomatopoeia.
In hypnotherapy, the hypnotist uses a 'patter' or script to deliver positive suggestions for change to the client.
In London Labour and the London Poor (1851), Henry Mayhew divides the street-sellers of his time into two groups: the patterers, and everyone else.[2]
Entertainment and Music
In certain forms of entertainment,
radio DJ patter, known as Mcing, is among the roots of rapping.[3] The form can be traced back as early as the 1890s among the other popular music styles like 'story ballads' and 'parlor waltzes.'[4] Patter also has operatic origins as well, the form of the patter song being featured in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. So important is patter to the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta form that it forms one of the seven identified tenants of their style.[5] Patter then became a signature in the style known as savoy opera.[5] The musical identification of patter is intrinsically linked to the flow of words in time.[6]
It is thus also used of any rapid manner of talking, and of a
patter-song, in which a very large number of words have to be sung at high speed to fit the music. A western square dance caller may interpolate patter—in the form of metrical lines, often of nonsense—to fill in between commands to the dancers.[7]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Patter | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
- ^ "The Gentleman Grafter" by Howard Kaplan, May 2006. Vanity Fair
- ISBN 978-1-107-03746-5.
- ^ Young, Lari Dianne. "AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN SOCIETY AS WITNESSED THROUGH MUSICAL THEATRE: 1927-PRESENT." Dissertation, Texas Tech University, 1994. https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/fde0ed3a-c302-40ad-80dc-acd8ee97624d/content
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4742-6700-7.
- ISBN 978-0-521-88849-3, retrieved 2023-10-27
- ^ Square Dance Patter Sayings Archived 2013-01-02 at the Wayback Machine Vic & Debbie Ceder's Square Dance Resource Net.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Patter". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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