Re: misc kate murmurings ("GAFFA")

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

In article <29OCT93.10911657.0067@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA> you write:
>In article <9310291118.AA04277@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.Arizona.EDU> arg@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.arizona.EDU (Alex Gibbs) writes:
>>But gaffa is from the song "Suspended in Gaffa" on _The Dreaming_
>>and is generally believed to refer to gaffer's tape, like duct tape.
>
>It could be, but I dunno.  It might be an idea to undertake an
>extensive study of the meaning of "gaffa".  On the other hand, why
>doesn't somebody ask Kate?
>(I can't believe somebody hasn't yet, though)

    People have asked Kate, and the problem lies in the fact that the
answer Kate gives depends on several factors:

   Who's asking?
   What else did they ask her?
   Why do they want to know?
   Where did they ask the question?
   When did they ask her?

                                         (Hi Valerie!)

   Kate is more outgoing with some interviewers than others;
interviewers that she doesn't get along with get rote and rehearsed
answers, rather than simply being told to piss off.
   If an interviewer asks stupid questions, Kate isn't likely to
bother giving smart answers.
   Interviewers with preset agendas will probably get less forthcoming
responses than those without.
   Some interviews are one-on-one and personal, in a personal space
like her dance studio or home. Others consist of a dozen reporters
at once asking questions, in a time-honored technique called the
"Mongolian Cluster F**K."
   If the interview is shortly after the release of an album, she will
be a bit more likely to answer directly. If she has already answered
the question a dozen time, she has had practice, and has been forced
to reduce a complex answer to a soundbite.

>  Anyway, there are at least  these other possibilities:
>2. a gaff is an iron hook used in fishing
>3. a boom or spar used to support an extension to fore and aft
>   sails
>
>4. from OE *(ge)gaf-spraec* - blasphemous or rude speech
>5. from Mod. French *gaffe* - "a remark by which one 'puts ones
>
>(both 3 & 4 having to do with social blunders which might hinder
>or "suspend" one's position in certain company - it seems to me
>this has more to do with the song than any actual physical
>hinderance)
>
>6. (slang) a fair or other petty amusement
>
>(could be a reference to an entertainer's career going
>nowhere - not likely, this)

   Kate has *once* refered directly to duct tape. Several other times
she has refered to a metaphorical state of not being able to achive
the thing that you want to. 

   My theory is that "gaffa" is a pluralized form of "gaffe." One
gaffe many gaffa. Further I believe that Kate was aware of several
of the other english meanings of "gaff," and used several of then
in a vague punning way. A couple of others - the "gaff" is the hook
used in vaudeville to drag failing preformers off the stage. The
"gaff" is specifically the main wide avenue of a fair or carnival,
with temptations on either side to draw one away from the goal of
the other rides and amusments. The other is the phrase "blowing the
gaff" british slang for revealing the secret. See "The Crying Game" 
for a recent usage.

   The problem with discussion of the meaning of "gaffa" is that
a number of rec.music.gaffa posters have become extreamly tired
of *any* discussion of this groups namesake word, and have seized
upon Kate's simple answer to a simple questioner and have concluded
that that answers it once and for all. So, a couple of times a year
someone attempts to point out some new and interesting point, like
the Muslem word "Quaffa" and is shouted down by the "gaffa is gaffer's
tape" brigade. 
 
   Oh, well. At some point in the future we may have to have a 
rec.music.gaffa.gaffa newsgroup.


                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)
                                   katefans@chinet.chinet.com (ours)