12 strings on the Bay
Jonmark Stone
Posted 2008-08-14 7:08 PM (#301101)
Subject: 12 strings on the Bay


Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 1557

Location: Indiana
Both a Deacon and a Preacher up this week.
That's unusual. Here I am, broke again.
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scooterboy
Posted 2008-08-14 9:07 PM (#301102 - in reply to #301101)
Subject: Re: 12 strings on the Bay


Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 288

Location: New Hampshire, USA
So is the deacon auction description correct - calling a guitar an "axe" started as a result of the Deacon(/Breadwinner) looking like an axe?

Is that really true?
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Jonmark Stone
Posted 2008-08-14 9:43 PM (#301103 - in reply to #301101)
Subject: Re: 12 strings on the Bay


Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 1557

Location: Indiana
Goes back further than that... at least according to this:
http://www.word-detective.com/041007C.html

"The use of "axe" as slang for a musical instrument dates back to 1955, i.e., in the edenic pre-Kiss days. The instrument to which "axe" was first applied, however, was not the guitar, but the saxophone. The logic may have been simply the "sax/axe" rhyme, but another theory ties "axe" to the "swing" of a jazz sax player in full stride. "Axe" was also later applied to the trumpet before becoming accepted as slang for the guitar, a use which has probably persisted in part because of the instrument's resemblance to an actual axe."
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Old Man Arthur
Posted 2008-08-14 10:17 PM (#301104 - in reply to #301101)
Subject: Re: 12 strings on the Bay



Joined:
September 2006
Posts: 10777

Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR
Originally posted by Jonmark Stone:
...a use which has probably persisted in part because of the instrument's resemblance to an actual axe."
Add to that the swinging motion of Jimi Hendrix and more frequently The Who as they destroyed guitars! :eek:
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