Never mind the rudimentary first aid given to Jack after he tumbled down the hill after having fetched the pail of water. "Plaster and brown paper"? The guy broke his frickin' crown! Get the guy in to see a neurosurgeon, stat!

I think The Man with the Yellow Hat would have been glad to have a few friends for Curious George.

I don't know what that means exactly, but it makes me uneasy and scared for our little monkey friend.

Luckily, Looney Tunes(TM) give kids a much more medically accurate perspective on head wounds and their appropriate treatment.

Personally, I'm disturbed by the fate of those poor blind mice. I don't know whom to sue, though, so I'll opt for a killing spree instead. Cheers!

Jack and Jill went up the hill
Each with a buck and a quarter
Jill came down with two and a half
They didn't go up for water

For gawd's sake...think of the anvils...

Now "experts" are saying that nursery rhymes are sexist and bad. Gee whiz. Grimm's fairy tales are cool and way more warped than Disney's cleaned up versions! Let the children learn some history and rhyme.
Back stories on the origins are quite interesting, and I say poo on the "experts!"
(yes, I know this was written for a once a year "tongue-in-cheek" article, but TOO many people get bent out of shape over stuff like this, because they BELIEVE it!)
Just wait-- you will hear saomewhere of a revised nursery rhyme book with all love and bandaids and no eye peckings, no falls, no fights, no death...wait- I think they already have politically correct bedtime stories and nursery rhymes--what next???

Phht. Us kids with German moms had goddamn Struwwelpeter (Shock-headed Peter) inflicted on us. Among the sick illustrated highlights are cutting your thumbs off to keep from sucking them, burning to death from playing with matches, being thrown in an oven, drowning, more.







Seriously creepy and disturbing stuff.

Nevermind the danger of teaching children about head wounds...what about nursery rhymes teaching them to hate the British; I believe that is far more dangerous.

the most disturbing rhyme is the one about 10 little monkeys bouncing on a bed. It's pure simian carnage



....pure simian carnage

Great line!

(please say this article was a lame attempt at satire...)

Nevermind the danger of teaching children about head wounds...what about nursery rhymes teaching them to hate the British; I believe that is far more dangerous.

Nevermind the danger of teaching children about head wounds...what about nursery rhymes teaching them to hate the British; I believe that is far more dangerous.

Seems to me that 'never trust your step-mother' is the main point of nursery rhymes in general.

Why does it always post more that one of mine?

Bellefromhell - I picked up a CD of nursery rhymes and the like for my kids a couple of months ago. "Jack and Jill" goes like this:

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down,
All the way down,
And Jill came tumbling after.

And, "Ring around the Rosy":

Ring around the Rosy,
Pocket full of Posies,
Yay, yay,
We all jump around.

Seriously, like toddlers would know the connotations of "Ring around the Rosy" with coping with the Black Plague, but this neutering of everything "for the children" is really frustrating.

obb says: "Never mind the rudimentary first aid given to Jack after he tumbled down the hill after having fetched the pail of water. 'Plaster and brown paper'?"


the "first responders" in my neck of the woods were WORSE - they fixed jack up with VINEGAR and brown paper

Why does it always post more that one of mine?

the crazy germans, what other antics will they get up to next.

IrieTom

I always wondered what lessons Wile E. Coyote taught me....

stop mocking me

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor doggy a bone
But when she bent over
Rover took over
And slipped her a bone of his own

Georgie Porgie puddig pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
He kissed them too 'cause Georgie's gay!

What about that one nursery rhyme where a guy built a big boat and filled it with animals of every kind. what about all the little babies who were'nt allowed on the boat..did they just drown??? No lifesaver?? No baby boats??

Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The mouse got a shock
And fell like a rock
It was an electric clock

Little boy blue

He needed the money.......

And what about their strange methods of infant care, which include sticking babys' heads in gravy, washing them out with bubble gum, and then - of all things - sending them off to the United States Navy?

Glad I'm not the only one to have realised it's satire Goober.

Meanwhile,
Did he have a post-coital heart attack - the authors note no one ever said he was in bed alone - that led to the head bumping?

now that's funny.

What's so bad about Jack breaking his crayon?

/grew up in Philly

Something_else: Newtonian physics.

...and electromagnetic theory.

My mother used to sing this to me whenever we saw a funeral procession:

"Did you ever see a hearse go by/
and think some day you're going to die?/
They put you in a wooden box/
and cover you over with dirt and rocks/
The worms crawl in/
The worms crawl out/
in your stomach/
and out your mouth/
There was one little worm who wasn't so shy/
went in your ear and out your eye!"

WTF???
/reads article.
kay, it's satire. i'm cool.

just as long as i can read my old book of Aesop's fables to my kids at night.

I have often wondered at what point in our history did the story of Jack and Gil become the tale of Jack and Jill?

Was this a PC issue? Some form of victorian homophobia?

Damn, they were fetching water not coming out of the closet.

Or, perhaps I am reading too much into this. Maybe Gil had to go into some form of witness protection program because he knew too much!

Just what color was that water and exactly what contaminates did the two kinder find in the aquifier?

I suspect Jack must have been paid off

IrieTom

A lesson I'll always remember: gravity only works if you look down.

Holy crap, ManCalledFoot, that's some truly disturbing nursery rhymage...

the revolution will be sanitized.

I did not know this... Found it at http://www.rhymes.org.uk/ring_around_the_rosy.htm

Origins of "Ring around the rosy" in English History
The words to the Ring around the rosy children's ring game have their origin in English history . The historical period dates back to the great plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague). The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources. The English version of
"Ring around the rosy" replaces Ashes with (Atishoo, Atishoo) as violent sneezing was another symptom of the disease.

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
"Ashes, Ashes"
We all fall down!

This...is a parody, right? No? Then what the hell is wrong with the world.

When I fell off that concrete play structure onto my
lower lip when I was 6, the LAST thing i was thinking
about was Jack'n'Jill. darn thing's still there 35 years
later, albeit with a big rubber pad underneath it.doesn't
look a quarter as tall as it used to...

This morning we were just talking about the Gingerbread man. I figured everyone was against him because he was brown.

"if your country's full of brown people you better watch the f*k out"
- George Carlin

The words to the Ring around the rosy children's ring game have their origin in English history . The historical period dates back to the great plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague).

Jesus, not this again. Do the reading, people.

One more time: Ring Around The Rosy is NOT about bubonic plague.

In other news, it's not "Gang Initiation Week," green M&Ms don't make you horny, and no, spiders did not lay their eggs in your sister's friend's hairdo and cause her head to explode when they hatched.

ManCalledFoot: Dang, I recognize that! We actually read it in German class. Er saugte an seinen Daumen, und der Schneider kam und schnitzte den Daumen des Kind.

That was horrible, wasn't it?

The actual journal article is at:

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/169/12/1294

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
they each had a buck and a quarter.

Jill came back with $2.50
Go figure!

(thanks Dice)