Some questions on the national anthem of the USA ——
By dennislv
@dennislv (134)
Shanghai, China
October 10, 2013 3:12am CST
Here are part of the lyrics:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Q1:"say can you see", why "say" is put here?What does it mean?
Q2:what does "rocket" here mean? It can't be the modern rocket!
Q3:I think O'er here is the short form of "over", am I right?
Q4:How old were you when you could sing this anthem? And when did you fully understand the song's meaning and setting?
Q5:Can you sing the national anthem in full now?
2 responses
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
10 Oct 13
1) "Oh, say can you see ...?" is another way of writing "Tell me, can you see ...?". "Oh, say ..." and "Tell me ..." are imperative interjections used to increase the force of the (rhetorical, in this case) question. The expected answer would be "Yes, I can see ...!"
2) Rockets have been used in warfare almost since the invention of gunpowder. During the American Civil War they were quite similar to the recreational firework rocket and some would have contained explosive charges while others may have been used as flares are to light up a section of the battlefield.
3) "O'er" is a quite common poetical contraction of "Over". It is generally used to replace the two syllables of 'o-ver' with one, which is pronounced approximately to rhyme with 'mower'. Actually, I can't for the moment think of any other word which contains this exact sound: most words (like 'mower', 'lower', 'goer' &c) are normally pronounced as two syllables.
3 & 4)I'm not American, so it is not my National Anthem and I can't say that I have ever learned it. I am somewhat familiar with the tune but I don't think that, even if I had the words written down, I could sing it from memory.
I could probably sing the first verse of my own National Anthem ("God Save the Queen") but I don't remember any of the others well enough to sing them from memory! I don't remember when I first knew the song. Probably I knew the tune fairly well by the time I was four or five.
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@trinale (1479)
• United States
11 Oct 13
@owlwings considering you're not American, I am very impressed with your knowledge of the Star Spangled Banner!
@dennislv I can't remember exactly but I would say I was probably 9 11 or 12 years before I could sing the anthem. I fully understood the meaning of the song soon after joining the U.S. Air Force.
Can I sing the national anthem in full now? I don't think any of us Americans can sing the entire anthem since we only really learn just the 1st verse.
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@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
11 Oct 13
@owlwings It's kinda like the way atheists know the Christian Bible better than the Pope does!
@trinale The back of my mind is thinkin` "Ya` mean there's more than one verse?" because no one EVER sings the last-three in public! It's kinda like The Miranda Rights ("You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as they have been rehd to you?") ...
Most TV-dramas that show cops 'reading the crooks their rights' cut `em off at the second sentence. (I only remembered the rest from the movie -21 Jump Street-, where they made sort of a 'big deal' about learning them.)
