Patter[1] is a prepared and practicedspeech that is designed to produce a desired response from its audience. Examples of occupations with a patter include theauctioneer,salesperson,dance caller,magician, andcomedian.
The term may have been a colloquial shortening of "Pater Noster", or theLord's Prayer, and may have referred to the practice of mouthing or mumblingprayers quickly and mechanically.
From this, it became a slang word for the secret and equally incomprehensible mutterings of acant language used by beggars, thieves, fences, etc., and then the fluent plausible talk that acheap-jack employs to pass off his goods. Manyillusionists, e.g.,card magicians, 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 ofonomatopoeia.
Inhypnotherapy, the hypnotist uses a 'patter' or script to deliver positive suggestions for change to the client.
InLondon Labour and the London Poor (1851),Henry Mayhew divides the street-sellers of his time into two groups: thepatterers, and everyone else.[2]
In certain forms of entertainment,peep shows and Russianrayok, patter is an important component of a show. Theradio DJ patter, known asMCing, is among the roots ofrapping.[3] The form can be traced back as early as the 1890s among the other popular music styles like 'story ballads' and 'parlor waltzes.'[4] Patter also has operatic origins as well, the form of thepatter song being featured in theoperettas ofGilbert and Sullivan. So important is patter to the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta form that it forms one of the seven identified tenants of their style.[5] Patter then became a signature in the style known asSavoy opera.[5] The musical identification of patter is intrinsically linked to the flow of words in time.[6]
It is thus also used of any rapid manner of talking, and of apatter-song, in which a very large number of words have to be sung at high speed to fit the music. A western square dancecaller may interpolate patter—in the form of metrical lines, often of nonsense—to fill in between commands to the dancers.[7]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Patter".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.