[Callers] another new word idea

[James Saxe via Callers]

I tried typing each of the following into the Google search box:

     "frontier twirl" square dance

     "frontier whirl" square dance

The "whirl" version got more hits, but the "twirl" version also
got enough to show that it's more than just one person's
idiosyncratic variant.

Bonus history tidbit:  In Ed Gilmore's dance "The California
Whirl", as published in the May 1951 _Sets in Order_ magazine
and on page _Sets In Order_'s _5 Years of Square Dancing_
compilation (a/k/a _Five Years of Sets In Order_), the term
"California Whirl" is used to mean what would now be called
a "Left Star Thru".  That is, it's done by dancers who are
facing each other, rather than by those who are side-by-side,
with gent using left hand and lady using right hand.  On the
other hand (as it were), when Ed describes the "Inside Arch
Outside Under" routine in his 1949 callers course syllabus

     http://squaredancehistory.org/items/show/581

he uses "California Whirl" just as we now use "California
Twirl'.  The terminology just wasn't as precicodified in
those ®®days as it is in MWSD today.

--Jim

> On Jan 27, 2016, at 1:20 PM, Rich Sbardella via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> 
> Erik,
> I have heard Frontier Whirl as a California Twirl, but never Frontier Twirl?  Are you sure?  (Maybe I am mistaken.)
> Rich Sbardella
> Stafford, CT
> 
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 12:26 PM, Erik Hoffman via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> What Michael Fuerst said at a readable size (It's still coming through to me in some microscopic font):
> 
> > Are you also contemplating  to abandon the awkward to say "California
> > Twirl"
> > If you use your gypsy alternative for new dancers, will you advise them
> > of all the synonyms being conjured ?
> 
> Aha! A whole new topic. Well, actually old. Larry Edelman, one of my favorite dance callers, and someone I feel lucky to have spent time with, and from whom I have learned so much, use to complain about "California Twirl." I don't recall his reasons, but he always called it a "Frontier Twirl," which I think he got from old square dance books. 
> 
> I've been using "right shoulder turn," and "left shoulder turn," and mentioning that there's been a discussion on the use of the word Gypsy. Then again, somewhere around sixty percent of the time I tend to call a "right hand turn," instead of "allemande right," as it's more descriptive. 
> 
> This, in some ways, gives another reason for using different words: the use of descriptive calls. Thus abandoning a non-descriptive call for one that is more readily interpreted by all dancers has other benefits than just abandoning a word that some--or all--find pejorative .
> 
> ~erik hoffman
>     oakland, ca
> 
> 
> On 1/27/2016 7:03 AM, Michael Fuerst via Callers wrote:
>> Are you also contemplating  to abandon the awkward to say "California Twirl"
>> If you use your gypsy alternative for new dancers, will you advise them of all the synonyms being conjured ?
>>  
>> Michael Fuerst      802 N Broadway      Urbana IL 61801      217 239 5844
>> 
> 
> 
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