[Callers] Re: Gentlespoons/Ladles (from Rompin' Stompin')

Hi, John! I assume by "looking to the right when looking across the set" you mean "people who are looking to the right to look at their corner" rather than just "across". (I've found that things like "when you're facing your partner, if your right hand is closer to the person diagonally across, you're a first corner" don't get processed terribly reliably, so as i say I've started defining the diagonals by room landmarks. John quoted me: and wrote: I don't think anybody's doing that. Whether first corners are with respect to the room or by definition of right diagonal within the foursome (which is what I think your definition boils down to), the First Corners are the first corners regardless. However, in a duple minor improper, the people who start out on them are the people who'd be robins; in a Becket or an indecent they'd be larks, in a proper contra they'd be lark#1 and robin #2. I think the source of the confusion - why I brought it up - was that I do tend to use those as momentary role names in English dancing. (In reading dance notation, I find it a lot easier to follow roles (even if the roles are OFC (original first corner) than instantaneous positional descriptions - eg "first corners do-si-do one time and swing partner; second corners chain across to neighbor" is talking about the same people crossing the set both times, because the partner swing changes places with partner on the side, meaning they're on opposite corners. Of course you can notate dances one way and call them another, and instantaneously positional makes more sense if you're actually walking than if you're reading. [That said, seems like strict instantaneously positional offers very little cluing to recover if people didn't get into the right place on the last prompt - the ones who find themselves in those spots might not be the correct people and you may end up switching roles or partners. Of course that can be mitigated with other prompts; I think of "same two chain back" as effectively a nonce role descriptor rather than instantaneously positional but dancers likely wouldn't.] -- Alan