The etymology of the term "taw" to mean a square dance partner is a topic that I've seen come up before--I think both on the rec.folk-dancing Usenet newsgroup and on some MWSD list I used to subscribe to--but never with any definitive resolution. One explanation sometimes offered is the one alluded to by Phil Jamison and Richard Hart, namely, that it derives from use of "taw" to mean a favorite marble. However, I haven't seen any citations of early sources to support this idea. I've only seen it offered as a conjecture after the actual origin of the usage was already obscure. The word "taw" also occurs in the phrase or "bring [someone] to taw" (or "come to taw"). The precise nuance of meaning implied by this phrase isn't clear to me, but it seems related to the ideas of getting someone under control and making them toe the line, and perhaps by extension the idea of bringing ("dragging"?) someone to the altar. You can find a long discussion of the phrase "come to taw" on the Mudcat Cafe site here: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=50284 One of participants quotes the Oxford English Dictionary (1989 edition) as citing this poem from a 19th-century source: He smiles at all the girls he meets, And you smile at him on the crowded streets, Why don't you make him 'come to taw', I know he wants a mother-in-law. Did this sort of usage "come/bring to taw" lead to the use of "taw" to mean a square dance partner? Perhaps. But the idea would seem more compelling if someone could provide evidence of any regional usage of "taw" to mean a spouse/sweetheart outside the context of square dancing. (By the way, I have no idea whether the expression "bring/come to taw" is etymologically connected with the phrase "toe the line" or with the "taw line" in marbles games.) Another suggestion is that "seesaw your taw" is a mangling via oral tradition, of the French phrase "chasse autour' (sidestep around). I think I first read that idea in an article by Stewart Kramer, which you can find here: https://www.ceder.net/ArticleCoOp/articles/sashay.php Personally, I think that this explanation has more of a ring of plausibility than the others. What keeps me from being fully sold on it is that I haven't yet seen an example of the phrase "chasse autour" (or the plural/polite form "chassez autour", with implied subject "vous" instead of "tu") appearing in an old French dance manual. I'd be interested if anybody can cite one. --Jim

As with Thar (a back up star). Bob Livingston From: "Ridge Kennedy srk3nn3dy(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers]" <trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com> To: Traditional American Dance Callers List <trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2017 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [trad-dance-callers] "taw" (was Re: History of "Walk Around")   A Taw-dry response. Maybe it's just that callers were using "Paw" and "Ma" and "mother in law" and picked a rhyming syllable and that was all there was to it.  Something that occurred in the big square dance boom years -- likely untraceable to first use, but sort of a folk art development.  Just thinking.  Ridge #yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515 -- #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;font-family:Arial;margin:10px 0;padding:0 10px;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp hr {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp #yiv4674740515hd {color:#628c2a;font-size:85%;font-weight:700;line-height:122%;margin:10px 0;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp #yiv4674740515ads {margin-bottom:10px;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp .yiv4674740515ad {padding:0 0;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp .yiv4674740515ad p {margin:0;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-mkp .yiv4674740515ad a {color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;}#yiv4674740515 #yiv4674740515ygrp-sponsor #yiv4674740515ygrp-lc 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Hi, Buddy, You recently wrote, on the trad-dance callers list: I know of one sound clip from the Santa Monica Diamond Jubilee online, namely this one of Cal Golden: https://squaredancehistory.com/items/show/470 And indeed, Cal uses the a"chaw of tobacco" line (at 2:23), but not preceded by "hey Ma, hey Pa." Since I see you posting this on t-d-c, I have a couple questions. First, the page I cite above identifies the tune the band played for Cal Golden at the Diamond Jubilee was "Ragtime Annie." The program for the Diamond Jubilee https://squaredancehistory.org/files/original/846b7f1dcdad39d2faa753bff2ccf… lists 28 patter squares. Do you by any chance know--or know how I could find out--what tunes the bands played for the other 27? Second, if you follow the trad-dance-callers list, you may have noticed the request for people's lists of their favorite tunes for patter squares that I posted on May 12, with follow-up on July 3. In my message, I specifically mentioned that, for purposes of my current project, I'm interested in traditional (or traditional-sounding) tunes, and not in some of the quite non-traditional (IMO) music often found on recent MWSD recordings. Nonetheless, one person who responded off-list suggested that I contact you. So, I'm asking: Are there any particular tunes, or particular recordings of them, that you'd recommend to someone looking for traditional-sounding patter square hoedown music? For example, do you know of square dance recordings from the 1940's and 1950's, or modern re-recordings with similar instrumentation and playing style, that still have favored by some callers? Does Blue Star or any associated/subsidiary label had a "retro" department retro enough to carry such recordings? Or if you somehow got a gig calling with a live bluegrass or old-time band, and they showed you a set list, are there titles that would make you say, "Let's try that one"? Or if you were approached by a caller wanting to call one-night parties using old routines like "Texas Star, "Birdie in Cage," and "Grapevine Twist," and if he wanted to get people imagining they're in a barn with a fiddler and not a synth player, are there particular records you'd recommend? Or do any of your labels carry called versions of such old routines, and can you tell me what tunes back them up? Thanks for any info you care to offer either about this or about the tunes at the Diamond Jubilee, an dmy apologies if these inquiries are intrusive or misdirected. Regards, --Jim Saxe Santa Clara, CA

I may be the only person I know who uses this term, but sometimes at a MWSD dance, I'll refer to the spouse of the caller as the "Caller Taw," a title which implies a certain role and responsibilities. A vanishing breed these days, perhaps, the Caller Taw (who can be, by the way, either male or female), used to busy him/herself with refreshments and such, and if someone was needed to fill in for a tired or otherwise unavailable dancer of either dance gender, the Taw would willingly do so. (Otherwise, they mostly would NOT get to dance, not being part of a dancing couple.) I know a handful of caller-spouses still active in that role. Regarding the back-to-back vs. "gypsy" action of "All Around/Walk Around Your Left Hand Lady": I was surprised to read that it was ever a do-sa-do type action. You can take my observations with a grain of salt, since my personal dance history, starting in 1975, is FAR much more recent than the Pappy Shaw era, but I remember getting the very specific message that "Walk Around" meant exactly that... not even so much a nose-to-nose thing as just a "keep right shoulders adjacent" thing, and likewise with the left shoulder with partner. In MWSD usage, the next thing to follow is usually an Allemande Left with corner, so it makes sense that one should end the move looking away from partner, ready to interact with corner again. Chip Prince

I've found a couple more variations on "all around your left hand lady,"though I think the ones Tom has cited cover what I have most often read. Watch the sequence that starts at about 0:31 in this 1951 film produced by Bob Osgood: https://squaredancehistory.com/items/show/654 It seems to me that both gents and ladies face pretty much toward the center of the square the whole time. The gents may be doing most of the traveling to get around the ladies while the ladies move more nearly straight forward and back, but the ladies seem to be doing a least a little sideways movement to give the gents a shorter path. The ladies' sideways movement is most evident after the cut to a different camera angle at 0:35. In _American Square Dances of the West and Southwest_ (1949), Lee Owens writes: "All around your Left Hand Lady" is the fourth variety of the Sashay. In this movement the gentlemen only encircle their Corner Ladies, passing back to back with them, then facing center and dancing in front of them back to place, keeping their backs to the ladies as they encircle them. As the gentlemen dance around the ladies, the ladies dance two steps forward and pause until the gentlemen have "cleared" them and then dance two steps backward to place as the gentlemen complete their encircling movement around the ladies. The figure requires eight beats of music and is danced between Corners. It is usually followed by the same movement danced between Partners to the call of "See-saw your pretty little Taw," or, "Sashay 'round your pretty Baby," ... Owens's description of the See-Saw/Sashay part similarly says, "The gentlemen keep their backs to the ladies throughout ..." I can't recall seeing this styling recommended anywhere else besides Owens's books. --Jim