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dreamsharkNot the ones that are taught by nursery school teachers or popularized by commercial singers from Hopalong Cassidy to Raffi, but the ones that are passed along from child to child through the generations. Jump rope rhymes, silly parodies of popular songs, slightly naughty songs that grownups are not likely to pass along (unexpurgated, anyway) and that kind of thng.
I started thinking about this while commenting to Laramie, where I mentioned "On Top of Spaghetti", "Jimmy is a friend of mine, he resembles Frankenstein", and the unauthorized version of the Notre Dame Fight Song. But based on internal evidence, I think the oldest one that I actually learned from other kids was this one. I mean, it has late 19th century written all over it, right?
Two Irishmen, two Irishmen, were digging in a ditch.
One called the other a dirty son of a ...
Birch beer, birch beer, ten cents a glass,
If you do not like it, shove it up your...
Ask me no questions and you will get no answers,
If you do not like it, you can go to...
Hello, operator, give me number nine.
If you cannot reach it, please return my dime.
I started thinking about this while commenting to Laramie, where I mentioned "On Top of Spaghetti", "Jimmy is a friend of mine, he resembles Frankenstein", and the unauthorized version of the Notre Dame Fight Song. But based on internal evidence, I think the oldest one that I actually learned from other kids was this one. I mean, it has late 19th century written all over it, right?
Two Irishmen, two Irishmen, were digging in a ditch.
One called the other a dirty son of a ...
Birch beer, birch beer, ten cents a glass,
If you do not like it, shove it up your...
Ask me no questions and you will get no answers,
If you do not like it, you can go to...
Hello, operator, give me number nine.
If you cannot reach it, please return my dime.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-28 02:18 am (UTC)