Old Mother Hubbard, Simple Simon, and Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater are also a mystery
Magda: What’s the word they use in that thing with the shepherdess?
Me: Shepherdess?
Magda: The shepherdess. What is she?
Me: What is she?
Magda: What is she?
Me: What is she? What shepherdess? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Magda: [sings] I’m blah blah blah-blah, I’ve lost my sheep, and don’t know where to find them…
Me: Oh! Little Bo Peep?
Magda: What’s a little bopeep?
Me: That shepherdess, that’s her name. [Sings] I’m Little Bo Peep, I’ve lost my sheep, and don’t know where to find them…
Magda: Oh. [Sings] I’m a little bopeep, I’ve lost my sheep, and don’t know where to find them…
Me: Not a little bopeep. Little Bo Peep. It’s her name. It’s a proper noun.
Magda: Whatever. She’s a shepherdess.
At about this time I realize how stupid the name “Little Bo Peep” sounds to begin with. See also this.
I have heard the game peekaboo referred to as peep bo, maybe there is a connection. Otherwise, huh?
Re: above and also this, above. The more I think about it the dumber, and also creepier, children’s songs and nursery rhymes really are. Like I, for one, just found out how the words in ring-around-the-rosy and ashes, ashes are really about the Black Death. D’oh!
(Google it for a truly interesting article about the coming pandemic; I have lost the link.)
On that note, nightynight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. If I should die before I wake…God, being a kid is terrifying!
Comment by gaoo — Tuesday 11 October 05 @ 03.48 MDT+2.00
I, for one, have been wondering what the effin-F*CK it means to “play knickknack”, let alone play in on “my thumb”, and further what the relationship of playing knickknack is to “paddywhack” (sp?) and “giv[ing] a dog a bone”. My son seems equally baffled, but he enjoys it nevertheless.
Comment by jdog — Thursday 13 October 05 @ 00.54 MDT+2.00
hehe! I love it when things like that make you look closer at things that you knew of but never thought very hard about. or when words become nothing but strange sounds. I remember first discovering that in kindergarten when saying “oatmeal” over and over again (for whatever reason) and suddenly not knowing what I was saying.
Comment by Aubrey — Monday 4 February 08 @ 07.30 MST+2.00