Re: TRS Peeves

[Mike.Gallaher@msfc.nasa.gov (Mike Gallaher)]

Peter Manchester proposes: 

>       Diva is indeed Latin for 'goddess', but the Latin in turn derives from
> the Indo-European root *deiwo meaning 'shining', from which Sanskrit 
> takes its name for the great Goddess, Devi, object of an enormously popular 
> cult and source of kundalini yoga and tantrism in India and Tibet.  
> In much 19th century English writing about Indic religion she is 
> called Diva, and I strongly suspect
> that she is the specific goddess Kate has in mind.

This sounds pretty good, and it may be that I underestimated Kate, esp.
if this ties in to TLTCTC as it seems it may.  And I guess the theory
about divas "carry[ing] themselves with a certain type of overarching 
dignity and poise" that either Stoller or Burka suggested makes some
sense.  Still, I find it easier to believe that she simply didn't know
the precise meaning of the word, thinking it meant "a highly accomplished
woman of the arts," and thought it could be used equally to apply to
a dancer, an operatic soprano, etc.  It's nothing to be ashamed of, 
I'd bet every one of us has some words defined incorrectly in our heads,
since noone looks up every word learned.  We're bound to overgeneralize
or overspecialize lots of them, and we don't realize it unless someone
corrects us or we happen to run across a definition.  I, for example,
wrote a technical memo a while back filled with serious misuse use of
aerodynamics terms.  None of my bosses caught it, but a woman on 
distribution did, and she gave me a marked up copy of my memo, just like
a schoolteacher.  Did I get angry?  No, I appreciated being corrected.
I'm grateful, though, that my audience was a handful of engineers, not
an international legion of record buyers.  Of course, any potential 
embarassment KaTe might feel, should my interpretation be true, would
be greatly ameliorated by fans like us, who are ever eager to defend,
to assume the best, to generate explanations, or simply to forgive 
human imperfections in the object of our adoration.

I still don't accept the ungrammatical construction, though.  Sure,
improper grammar can be used to create a particular "voice" or
personality, but that's not the case here, because this is not carried
over into the rest of the song.  More often, though, I am convinced that
these constructions arrive out of laziness or impatience (in the general
songwriting population, that is).  I think Kate just took the
easy way out on this line (Just as easy, and just as lazy, but better
at least to my ear would have been "Oh, she moved like a diva, ooh..."
But it's just one line, and I should make clear that otherwise the
song is one of my favorites on TRS, with an imaginative flair, great
instrumentation, and except for the opening line, good lyrics.  Come
to think of it, I can't fault the opener too much;  no matter its
faults, it gets the first element of the story across immediately and
clearly, so functionally, it's fine, just artistically a tad careless.

-- 
Mike Gallaher
205-544-1447