If all the World were Paper...

By Emily Willmoth (23rd June 2015)

            Nursery rhymes use old words because they are old. Their archaic lexis is widespread. 'The moon doth shine as bright as day'; 'Goosey goosey gander'. Their subject matter is odd ('Can you make me a cambric shirt?') and stuffed with traditions that don't make sense ('Jack be nimble / Jack be quick / Jack jump over the candlestick'). Sometimes they can be very violent, and euphemistic for things no mother wants to relay.

            'Hickety, pickety, my black hen,

            She lays eggs for gentlemen…'

            (Slang, of course, for 'the woman prostitutes herself'.)

            '…Sometimes nine and sometimes ten,

            Hickety, pickety, my black hen.'

            But of course, children knew these things in those days. If Dicky Dilver beat his wife, it was no less horrifying than the man next door doing exactly the same.

            Taboo evolves: it does not start out as taboo. There is a children's song from the 1860s called 'Ten little n** boys', which was very popular in its day and is still known. Its entire chorus is built on the adjective we see today as a racial slur.

            Language we might today see as emotive and unsuitable, such as 'death', 'coffin', 'blind', etc. is widely written in to nursery rhymes. Who killed Cock Robin? A nonchalant sparrow pipes up, "I did!" The thing is, children were exposed to this.

            Many nursery rhymes did not originate from the nursery at all. According to the OED of Nursery Rhymes, 'the overwhelming majority of nursery rhymes were not in the first place composed for children'. Examples being, 'Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home'; an old custom or ritual which was most likely a form of lucky charm, or 'This is the house that Jack built,' which has been attributed to the Jewish chant, 'Had Gadya', and is most certainly of ancient origin.

            They have evolved. They have been given a new coat of paint. They have been done up and acquired new purpose. Many poems had songs added to them and were adapted to fit a tune. When people did this, they often added nonsense words to make the lyrics 'fit' correctly to the notes. The riddle 'I had four sisters beyond the sea', had a whole chorus added, which made no sense, but enhanced the tune.

            Which brings me to the point that nursery rhymes are not said primarily for their meaning.

            'Eeny meeny miny moe' say the children; not because they like what it means (what does it mean?) but because they like the assonance of it: the sounds of the vowels. You say 'Arthur O'Bower has broken his band', but you don't care about the band: you like listening to the /b/s. Onomatopoeia is so lovely, it can paint a picture in your head: 'itsy bitsy spider', with all its skittering legs; 'Pat-a-cake', when you form pastry; 'Four dilly danders' mean nothing, except that, for the riddle, they sound like the udders they are describing.

            Before children learn words, rhymes help them to differentiate sounds, which helps them to recognise words, which helps them to learn to read.

            There once was a man called S. G. Goodrich, who nearly succeeded in banishing nursery rhymes from the nursery altogether. He said they were nonsense.

            Well, yes. Of course they are. But, to quote, 'This poor old man is dead and gone'… even though 'Higglety, pigglety, pop'…the nursery rhyme he wrote to prove nursery rhymes are useless… that's still here!