[Robert J. Clawson]

Iona and Peter Opie have done a scholarly study of playground rimes for Oxford.

Several verses on the Royal fam.

Worth checking out.

Bob

[Gail White]

What brought this suddenly back from the year 2006??

Whatever.

Anyone who has ever seen "The Gondoliers" knows this one:

My papa he keeps three horses,
Black and white and dapple gray, sir.
Turn three times then take your courses,
Catch whichever girl you may, sir!

[Matthew Hupert]

umgawa
black power
your mama need a shower
'cause she stiiiinks

[Janet Kenny]

Mary Moore,
Janet - We sang these lines just before the ones you give above:

A tisket, a tasket,
a green and yellow basket.

Mary,
Bless us all so did we. How I forget! My new (old) house has a hopscotch game set into its drive. I'm keeping it although I can't quite remember the rules.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited February 17, 2006).]

[Katy Evans-Bush]

What about this one, which we did to clapping games:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,
all dressed in black, black, black,
with silver buckles, buckles, buckles
all down her back, back, back

She asked her mother, mother, mother
for fifty cents, cents, cents
to see an elephant, elephant, elephant
jump over the fence, fence, fence

etc.

By the way, I think the Simpsons generation are doing a little of this, because my daughter went through this phase at about 9 at just the age I did.

Of course we used to do the counting-out ones too, definitely a tiger, and definitely there was an odd-even thing as to who you;d end up picking! There were several endings to eenie-meenie-miney-mo, and you could draw it out almost indefinitely if you wanted to pick a certain person.

KEB

[Mary Moore]

No one has mentioned what I think might be a universal one for the nursery school crowd while holding hands and walking in a circle:

Ring around a rosey,
pocket full of posey.
Ashes, ashes.
All fall down!

Mary

[David Anthony]

Yes, indeed. This was our local version:

Ring a ring o'roses
A pocketful of posies
atishoo, atishoo
We all fall down.

It's a folk memory of the Black Death, I believe.

[Gordon Dodd]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

Yes, indeed. This was our local version:

Ring a ring o'roses
A pocketful of posies
atishoo, atishoo
We all fall down.

It's a folk memory of the Black Death, I believe.

This was a favourite of my Dad (ex UK)
Mother, may I go down to bathe?
Yes, my darling daughter,
Hang your clothes on a gooseberry bush
But don't go near the water!
also:
Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear
One step; two steps
Tickley under there

My Mother (Ex Scotland) taught us:
Roond aboot, roond aboot
Ran a wee mouse (moose)
Up a bit, up a bit
In a wee house (hoos).

I wish I could track down this poem of my Dad:
Out among the mountain bracken
Where the little foxgloves grow
Lived a lonely goblin
Thinking of what he could do.
I can gather mountain berries
I can make them into jam
??????
Gordon
I'm beginning to get the hang of Eratosphere, with the emphasis on beginning.

[Janet Kenny]

For terror you couldn't beat this one. Two people formed an arch with linked hands held above the heads of the circle of children who filed through it until the unfortunate child had its head "chopped off" by the two people who formed the arch.

"Oranges and lemons",
say the bells of Saint Clements.
"When will you pay me?"
say the bells of Old Bailey.
"When I grow rich",
say the bells of Shoreditch.
"When will that be?"
say the bells of Stepney.
"I do not know"
says the Great Bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
and here comes a chopper to chop off your head.



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited February 19, 2006).]

[Kate Benedict]

I don't remember the tiger replacing the N word in that little ditty but I didn't hear the N word version in my yard. My mother must have changed the word herself, teaching it to me thusly: "Catch a piggy by the toe." I look back on little graces like that and smile.

She wanted me to speak properly. When she read aloud this poem to me from Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses:

A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon my window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!"

She said "Aren't you ashamed, you sleep-head." Mother wasn't a metricist!

Not a verse exactly, but there was this little abcedarian chant we little girls used to do when playing with our Spalding balls ("Spaldeens," we called them in the Bronx), bouncing them on the pavement and weaving them through our legs and such:

A my name is Annie
And my father's name is Abe
We come from Alabama
And we sell Apples!

B my name is Bonnie
And my father's name is Bob
We come from Boston
And we sell Biscuits.

The idea was to change the last word in each line at will to any ol' word that came to mind, as long as it began with the right letter.