your favourite nursery rhyme, please

[DaSwede]

What is your favourite nursery rhyme? I do know how to google, so what I'm asking for is not nursery rhymes in general, I'm asking for your personal favourite(s), the one(s) that stayed with you over the years, the one(s) you could quote if I woke you up in the middle of the night. I try to write a little myself, and I find it quite difficult. The ones I like the best are so simple - wish I could write like that!

For me as a foreigner it's also very difficult to invent nonsense sequences like rub-a-dub-dub and ding-dong-dell - sure I can do it, but I'm very insecure about the effect, how it 'sounds' when you read it. Don't suppose you can solve that one for me...

How would you define the difference between a nursery rhyme and any other rhyme written for children? Is it the nonsense quality that makes it a typical nursery rhyme?

Lots of questions there. It's going to be delightful to read your replies! I'll check in now and then, but I'll wait a week or so before 'closing' this post.

Here's one of my darlings, by Robert Graves:

I Have A Little Cough

I have a little cough, sir,
In my little chest sir,
Every time I cough, sir,
It leaves a little pain, sir,
Cough, cough, cough, cough,
There it is again, sir.

[scoobysoo]

This is my fave:

sing a song of sixpence

a pocket full of rye

four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie

when the pie was opened

the birds began to sing

now wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king

the king was in his counting house, counting out his money

the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey

the maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes

when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose

I love the tune, and sing it with my preschool class at work all the time

[SBell2406]

Not sure if it's technically a nursery rhyme, but one of my fav's was always

Miss Molly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.
So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
And he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.

He looked at the dolly and he shook his head.
And he said, "Miss Molly, put her straight to bed."
He wrote on the paper for a pill, pill, pill.
"I'll be back in the morning with the bill, bill, bill."

But thinking about it, there's millions I used to love as a kid (although I'm not sure I could quote anything if you woke me in the middle of the night - I'd struggle with my name!)

[CompNut]

Hi, DaSwede, interesting questions you've put to us.
My favourite Nursery Rhyme is the old one:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day
is blithe and bonny and good and gay.

In those days of course, 'gay' merely meant jolly!

and

I met a man upon the stair,
I looked again - he wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish to God he'd go away.

(This one may not be completely correct, but it is from memory from a long time ago!)

Good luck,

CompNut

[QueenOfSheba]

My favourite is:

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

Although some believe it is a reference to Mary, Queen of Scots (http://www.rooneydesign.com/MaryMary.html), so whether it is a "Nursery" rhyme.....

Hope this helps in some way for you!

[Quizmonkey]

As a child, whenever I visited the library with my father I always persuaded him to get the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes out for me (it was in the adult section!). My favourite was a fairly obscure rhyme called 'Akin Drum' about a man who lived in the moon.

[annavc]

My favourite was probably:

"Ring a ring of roses

A pocket of posies

Atishoo Atishoo

They all fall down."

At the time I didn't know it referred to the Black Death and we all used to sing it in the playground standing in a circle holding hands and at the end we'd all flop to the ground and laugh a lot!

[feebee]

Pop Goes The Weasel

Half a pound of tuppenny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel

Up and down the City Road
In and out The Eagle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel

Half a pound of tuppenny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel

[DaSwede]

Wish you could sing to me over the net, scoobysoo... Your rhyme is a good example of the kind of nonsense and simplicity that is so lovely to read and so hard to write. SBell, I know what you mean about memory struggles... Your rhyme was new to me, I can easily imagine the thrill of reading it as a child. It's almost like something you'd play: I'll be the doctor. No, I will, me me me. CompNut, what fun if it didn't mean 'jolly' after all...! Your first rhyme reminds me vaguely of one I can't quite remember... Something along the lines of "One, it's a boy/Two, it's a girl" and so on. If anyone knows it I'd be happy to see it posted here. (Irish singer Tommy Makem quoted it on a web site that I now can't find my way back to.) Your second one I remember hearing a hundred years ago while listening to the BBC World News in the middle of the night. It does stick! By the way, there's a movie with a similar name (The man who wasn't there) - wonder if the title's inspired by this rhyme. QueenOfSheba - yes, that's a beautiful one! I've never quite understood it, but it's truly magical. 'Quite contrary', does that denote Mary as being different, or oppositional...? Or is it just a pretty rhyme, I wonder. Haven't checked your link out yet, but I intend to - I might even find the answer there.

(to be continued below)

[DaSwede]

Quizmonkey, I'll be sure to seek out Akin Drum. Us Swedes being a licentious lot we naturally keep a treasured copy of The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes at one of our libraries here. annavc, that's lovely! I can hear you right now, in the playground. You know, it's interesting - so many nursery rhymes actually refer to some particular event in history, but you'd never know (if you didn't.) The fact that they've survived so well none the less says a lot for how well they are wrought. Do you suppose they will be rhyming about the bird flu a couple of centuries from now...? feebee, did you see the episode of NYPD Blue where Sipowicz and another cop had a spirited discussion about "what the hell's that mean, pop goes the f-n weasel, what the hell's that mean" etcetera. What does it mean? Anyone? I like it, though!

Keep'em coming!

[CompNut]

Hi again, DaSwede,
You asked what 'pop the weasel' means, and according to a nursery rhyme origins website, it means that it dates from the 1700's, and in Cockney rhyming slang a 'weasel and stoat' means coat, and to 'pop' something means to pawn it.
So when people were hard-up they would pop (pawn) their coat for a bit of cash. 'In and out of the Eagle' refers to an old pub called the Eagle, which has long since been demolished.

Looking up origins of practically anything is fascinating, isn't it.

Have a good weekend.

[DaSwede]

Hi again, CompNut, thank you so much, that is so interesting! The Eagle I might have guessed, but weasel-not-the-animal and pop - never. Why didn't Sipowicz just consult the AB?? Nooo, he has to run around town paying off snitches and beating people up in the interrogation room, but look who gets the job done - CompNut does.

QueenOfSheba, your link, what a neat web site that is!

[QueenOfSheba]

Hi DaSwede,

Just catching up on old threads. So glad you liked the website.

Have to say to you, that your English is fantastic, puts the Brits to shame the way we don't learn more languages! (or is that just me?!)

QoS

PS: (Not related, but I have a Swedish friend who lives in Halmstad and the only Swedish I know is: Gott Nytt Ar, a bit late I know, or early for next year!)

[DaSwede]

Hiya QueenOfSheba, I was just going through my mailbox and saw that somebody had posted a reply in this old thread - nice! Thanks for complementing me on my English, it's good to hear that, but I'm afraid there's a great divide between my abilitiy to write and my ability to speak - I use dictionaries literally once a minute. I could never learn a new language now, so I'm very grateful for the cultural imperialism that the UK and the USA have both carried on in this part of the world for as long as I can remember... For my parents' generation German was the compulsory second language at school, but that changed after WW2... so now we all 'have to' learn English, and I grew up with Monty Python and Upstairs Downstairs on one hand and Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen on the other, which makes me absolutely schizophrenic, by the way... When a Brit asks for directions (or whatever) I answer in UK English, when an American speaks to me I answer in US English. My dread is to one day find myself talking with a mixed group...

Anyways. My family lived in Halmstad ten years before I was born - my sister is born there! For next year's holiday seasons you could surprise your friend with writing not only Gott Nytt �r, but the entire phrase God Jul & Gott Nytt �r! (Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!)

Be good and be well!

[DaSwede]

(....and also, I make the kind of annoying mistakes you see an example of above: "My sister is born there" instead of "My sister was born there." That's the kind of thing you don't even stop to look up in a dictionary, you just go ahead and make the mistake! But I firmly believe that understanding each other is what matters, not whether it's all correct or not. There are a few snobs around here, but I've decided to carry on regardless!)