Why do the children's book on the nursery rhyme depict Humpty Dumpty as egg shaped, when the rhyme makes no attempt on describing Humpty dumpty whatsoever ?
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@Mamapolo2016 Those seem totally folk-memory creations by unknown children, having no reason other than being funny rhymes that provide a rhythm and timing for the game.
I can recall from very young a conga-like dance to its unique song that included [i]The big ship sails through the alley-alley-oh, alley-alley-oh[/i]. I forget the rest apart from thinking it ended something like [i]... on the first day of September[/i]. This piece of folk-art combined singing while processing through an arch formed by the end two players / dancers holding raised hands.
I was reminded of it only a few days ago by its being mentioned in a radio programme, as referring to the Manchester Ship Canal, which allows sizeable cargo-vessels to reach the inland port of Manchester from the Mersey-estuary port of Liverpool. (N.W. England)
The Canal still exists, spanned by the M6 Motorway on the high twin Thirwall Viaducts, but no longer carries much commercial shipping as ships now are too large for it and the docks at Salford have been redeveloped; but its Manchester-based owner/operators are planning to revive it for smaller-sized container ships.
Whether children still perform the song and its processional dance, though, I have no idea. I do not know what inspired the arch of the dance - if anything, perhaps Runcorn Bridge with its 70feet head-room.
@ArishMell And I'm sure all those rhymes developed like the game Gossip did. Somebody made it up in London and it changed frequently before it reached Chicago.
That's the name I've always known it by; I don't know how and where it originated, nor why the name; but I learnt it first in Primary School, a long way from London and about 63 years ago!
Sometimes the original message would survive barely past the first two or three people.
The name "Chinese Whispers" in fact is now in the language as a common cause for communications failures generally, where a message needs relaying through several departments .
There is an aprocryphal story from World War One, that a British army unit's request to "Send more ammunition. We're going to advance" went through so many relays it arrived at HQ as something like "Send two-and-six*, we're going to a dance".
Much more recently, is a piece of industrial folk-humour based on this. By folk-humour I mean anonymous satirical drawings or writings lampooning various aspects of work, especially managers, from unknown sources, but spreading through the country's industrial-estates and office-blocks at a great rate of knots. In this case the rightly damning shop-floor criticism of some inept new Directorial invention or policy, becomes slowly translated, word by word, on its upward progress to the board-room, from "It's a load of s**t", to "It's pure gold!"
Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Not exactly comforting words, but presumably the baby is too young to understand the meaning. It could be that toddler rhymes are the same: toddlers are too young to understand them the way adults might.
