Childhood Memories

Curiouser & Curiouser

The other day, quite randomly (as is usual in my mind), an old song that i used to sing as a child popped into my head and kept me singing all day. You probably remember it from when you were a kiddie...

One, two, three, four, five;

Once i caught a fish alive!

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten;

Then i let it go again.

Why did i let it go?

Because it bit my finger so!

Which finger did it bite?

This little finger, on my right!

It's such a bizzare little ditty. It got me thinking about some of the other more unusual nursery rhymes that i was surrounded with as a child.

You all know the tale of Little Miss Muppet? Well, i became strongly perplexed when i started thinking about why they had to say curds and whey, instead of just saying yoghurt. Loz pointed out that it wouldn't rhyme. However, if you subsitute eating her curds and whey for eating her yoghurt today, then you have something that makes a lots more sense, and still fits the rhyme. I guess even back then people liked to make things extra complicated.

Then there's the Marching song that we all used to sing;

Left. Left, right, left. Left, right, left...

I left my wife in New Orleans,

With twenty four kids and a can of beans,

I thought it was right, right, right for the country,

Whoop-dee-doo!

A question arose though. It it twenty-four kids? Or cents?! Loz votes cents. But i've always thought it was kids. It seemed like much more of a dilema when there are twenty-four mouths to feed and only the one can of beans. If it were twenty-four cents, then the wife could use her natural entrepenurial skills to turn that into a million dollars, so she could buy LOTS of cans of beans!

Another thought that is on a similar line; why is it that Donald Duck, who wears no pants, wraps a towel around his waist when he gets out of the shower? Interesting.

I love nursery rhymes, even when they're completely non-sensical. Nothing wrong with with a little nonsense now and then, even amongst the wisest men.

Annie