Patter is a prepared and practiced

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

that is designed to produce a desired response from its audience. Examples of occupations with a patter include the

auctioneer An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ...

salesperson Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale. A period during which goods are sold for a reduced price may also be referred ...

, dance caller, magician, and

comedian A comedian (feminine comedienne) or comic is a person who seeks to entertainment, entertain an audience by making them laughter, laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick), or employing prop c ...

. The term may have been a colloquial shortening of " Pater Noster", or the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

, and may have referred to the practice of mouthing or mumbling prayers quickly and mechanically. From this, it became a slang word for the secret and equally incomprehensible mutterings of a cant language used by beggars, thieves, fences, etc., and then the fluent plausible talk that a cheap-jack employs to pass off his goods. Many

illusionist Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of close-up magic, parlor magic, and stage magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural me ...

s, e.g.,

card magic Card manipulation, commonly known as card magic, is the branch of magic that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, especially in close-up, ...

ians, use patter both to enhance the show and to distract the attention of the spectators. In some circumstances, the talk becomes a different sense of "patter": to make a series of rapid strokes or pats, as of raindrops. Here, it is a form of

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...

. In

hypnotherapy Hypnotherapy, also known as hypnotic medicine, is the use of hypnosis in psychotherapy. Hypnotherapy is generally not considered to be based on scientific evidence, and is rarely recommended in clinical practice guidelines. However, several p ...

, the hypnotist uses a 'patter' or script to deliver positive suggestions for change to the client. In '' London Labour and the London Poor'' (1851),

Henry Mayhew Henry Mayhew (25 November 1812 – 25 July 1887) was an English journalist, playwright, and advocate of reform. He was one of the co-founders of the satirical magazine '' Punch'' in 1841, and was the magazine's joint editor, with Mark Lemon, in ...

divides the street-sellers of his time into two groups: the ''patterers'', and everyone else.

Entertainment and music

In certain forms of entertainment,

peep show A peep show, peepshow, or, a peep booth is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the devel ...

s and Russian ''

rayok A rayok ( rus, раёк, p=rɐˈjɵk, "small paradise") was a Russian fairground Raree show, peep show. Performed using a box with pictures viewed through magnifying lenses, these were accompanied by lewd rhymed jokes. ''The Fall of Adam and Eve ...

'', patter is an important component of a show. The radio DJ patter, known as MCing, is among the roots of

rapping Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates " rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backin ...

. The form can be traced back as early as the 1890s among the other popular music styles like 'story ballads' and 'parlor waltzes.' Patter also has operatic origins as well, the form of the

patter song The patter song is characterised by a moderately fast to very fast tempo with a rapid succession of rhythmic patterns in which each syllable of text corresponds to one note. It is a staple of comic opera, especially Gilbert and Sullivan, but it h ...

being featured in the operettas of

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen com ...

. So important is patter to the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta form that it forms one of the seven identified tenants of their style. Patter then became a signature in the style known as

Savoy opera Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which imp ...

. The musical identification of patter is intrinsically linked to the flow of words in time. It is thus also used of any rapid manner of talking, and of a patter-song, in which a very large number of words have to be sung at high speed to fit the music. A western square dance caller may interpolate patter—in the form of metrical lines, often of nonsense—to fill in between commands to the dancers.Square Dance Patter Sayings
Vic & Debbie Ceder's Square Dance Resource Net.

Notes

References

* {{EB1911, wstitle=Patter Entertainment Oral communication

Entertainment and music

See also

Notes

References