Amy Reusch Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Maybe I'm crazy but I have trouble with Gail Grant's definition of Chasse as "one foot literally chases the other out of its position". When I first heard this, I thought it was an explanation some one came up with as a mnemonic device to help children remember the step... but that the name really referred The Hunt... as in noblemen hunting on horseback... rather than to a foot chasing another... my french dictionary lists "hunt" before anything else.. Am I out of my mind? Is there an etymology of ballet vocabulary out there? And has anyone traced the square-dance step "sashay" to chasse? Link to comment
carbro Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Can't take dictionary translations too literally, or you lose much of the nuance that is the real meaning of the word. When we, in urban, 21st century America (and elsewhere) hear the word "hunt," I think we envision primarily the seeking out ("hunt and peck at the keyboard"), but in fox hunting, it is the hounds who locate the prey, while the ones on horseback are the hunters, n'est-ce pas? Without checking sources, it seems that "sashay" whether in Square Dancing or not, is a corruption of "Chasser," as "toodle-oo" is of "a toute a l'heure." Toodle-oo! Gotta sashay away! Link to comment
sandik Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Think of it like a gallop, where the trailing leg catches up to the leading leg, only in time for the leading leg to shoot forward again. In a chasse, the trailing leg 'appears' to push the leading leg out (though we know that the trailing leg is actually the primary weight-bearing leg as the leading leg slides on the floor) Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Metathesis, the transposition of the initial sounds of two adjacent words or syllables, is one of the most common forms of word change through usage. Even Abraham Lincoln left in his writings the metathetical "bass-ackwards," so lending it a sort of respectability. Link to comment
Watermill Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Mell, Wel, you took care of that in one swell foop! Materwill Link to comment
Treefrog Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Think of it like a gallop Like horses do? In a hunt? Just playing 's advocate here. I have no legitimate knowledge of this. Link to comment
vagansmom Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 According to here What word meaning "to walk ostentatiously" was coined by mispronouncing French? The word sashay was coined from the French chassèc); it means "to walk or move ostentatiously, casually, or diagonally." Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Problem is, "chassèc" isn't a verb. In fact, I don't know what it is. Link to comment
Amy Reusch Posted March 9, 2004 Author Share Posted March 9, 2004 Also... I don't know about you... but when I hear a sentence like "she sashayed through the doorway", I can't say I think of someone galloping through a doorway... it always brings to mind some image of swaying hips and swishing skirts... but the square dance "sashay" is definitely a chasse-like gallop... quite possibly they both entered the language by different paths but arrived at the same spelling (for lack of imagination?) Link to comment
sandik Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Think of it like a gallop Like horses do? In a hunt? Just playing 's advocate here. I have no legitimate knowledge of this. Thinking over this again, I guess the image of a chase is probably the most accurate -- the trailing leg catches up, but it never overtakes the leading leg. Tally-ho! Link to comment
vagansmom Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Well, truthfully, I think that "sashay" came about when some square dance caller with poor phonemic awareness, botched the word "chasser". Kind of like the reason why American versions of Irish jigs and reels are missing a couple notes: When the Scots-Irish emigrants came over on the boat, they leaned too far over the rails of the ship and a couple notes fell into the ocean. Link to comment
Estelle Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Problem is, "chassèc" isn't a verb. In fact, I don't know what it is. Well, I think that I know what it is: a typo. :grinning: Probably they meant either "chassé" (past participle, or noun) or "chasser". And I don't know how relevant it is, but "chasser" can be "to hunt", but it also can mean, depending on the context "to chase away, to drive away, to chase out"... Link to comment
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