So, when did you stop beating your house?

Kou scripsit:

> [E]very Chinese music video from time immemorial has had Chinese
> subtitles. Cassettes and CDs obligatorily come with the lyrics --
> something optional with their English counterparts. And every Chinese
> opera I've ever attended had an overhead projecting the libretto to one
> side of the stage.
I was thinking of less 20th-century examples.

Is it plausible that when mothers sing to their (non-infant) children,
the children don't have a clue what the lyrics are about?

Is the following dialogue plausible?

[In the rice fields by the canal.]

Warlord:  "Arrest that peasant!  He's singing a subversive song!"
Peasant:  "I was not either!"
Warlord:  "Well, scholar, was he or wasn't he?"
Scholar:  "I can't say for sure, my lord; his singing sacrificed too
          much tonal information!"

> I don't dismiss this out of hand, but not being a
> musician or composer, I don't understand how such a system would work.
Much like the noble Duke of York, I suppose (who "had ten thousand
men/And marched them up to the top of the hill/And marched them
down again" --- sounds very Chinese, somehow).  High notes for
high tones, low notes for low ones, rising notes for rising tones,
etc.

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)