[SpamCop-Social] Re: Hokey Pokey

[Frog Prince]

Here's his real biography:
Last link on http://gov.idaho.gov/fyi/kidbook/

Butt wait thurs more....

http://www.thebestlinks.com/Larry_LaPrise.html

Larry LaPrise (Roland L. LaPrise) (Born: 11 November 1912 Detroit, Michigan
Died: 4 April 1996 Gooding Idaho) was the writer of the Hokey Pokey.

LaPrise wrote the song in the late 1940s for an aprise-ski club in Sun
Valley Idaho. The song was first recorded by his group the Ram Trio (with
Charles Macak and Tafit Baker) in 1949. They were awarded US copyright in
1950.
After the group broke up in the 1960s, LaPrise worked for the Post Office in
Ketchum.

The authorship of the Hokey-Pokey is disputed, with Jimmy Kennedy claiming
to have written the original entitled Cokey-Cokey, or Hokey-Cokey, or
Okey-Cokey during WWII. Robert Degan sued LaPrise for copyright infringement
of his 1946 The Hokey-Pokey Dance. They settled out of court.

Some scholars attribute the origin to the Shaker song Hinkum-Booby which had
similar lyrics and was published in Edward Deming's A gift to be simple in
1940.

===

The "Hokey Pokey" was "borrowed" from the English. It's supposed to be
called the Hokey Cokey, which is a bastardised form of "Hoc est Corpus" or
"This is my Body". The Hokey-Cokey, with its song and actions, is a mimicry
of the Roman Catholic Mass. In those days the priest faced the altar (not
the people) and performed several actions as he consecrated the bread and
wine at Holy Communion. The words of the service were in Latin. You put your
left arm in ......etc was ridiculing the priest as he lifted his arms
heavenward during the rite. You do the Hokey- Cokey and you turn
around............ was when the priest turned to face the congregation with
the host (consecrated bread) to offer it to them.

Doing hokey cokey 'mimics Latin Mass'
By David Bamber

The hokey cokey and other ditties - The Tartan Army Song Book

THE hokey cokey, the popular dance, has always been seen as an innocent, if
raucous, form of entertainment. But an Anglican clergyman has now discovered
a more sinister side: it originated as a parody of the Roman Catholic
Church's Latin Mass.

Canon George Nairn-Briggs, Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire,
says that both the name of the dance and its actions were originally
designed to satirise the traditional Mass and the clergy. The dance involves
participants forming a chain and flinging their limbs about in line with
commands.

Canon Nairn-Briggs said: "In the days when the priest celebrated the Mass
with his back to the people and whispered the Latin words of consecration
with many hand movements, the laity mimicked the movements as they saw them
and the words as they misheard them." The words "hokey cokey" were a
mishearing, or a deliberate parody, of the Latin phrase "Hoc est enim corpus
meum", which translates as "This is my body".

Canon Nairn-Briggs also contends that another corruption of the same phrase
is "hocus pocus", the words believed to be used by magicians when they were
casting spells.

Historical sources appear to back up his theories. The Hokey Cokey became a
popular dance in 1940s America and crossed the Atlantic with US soldiers.
But its origins are much older and it seems to have gained popularity
originally on this side of the Atlantic, before being taken to the US by
refugees. An earlier folk dance version was performed in mainland Europe in
the 19th century.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that "hokey cokey" comes from "hocus
pocus", the traditional magicians' incantation that derives from a Latin
phrase used in satanic masses, themselves parodies of the Latin Mass.