How come everbody assumes humpty dumpty was an egg?

Answer 1

According to the Straight Dope and Wikipedia, the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme is a riddle to which the answer was apparently "an egg". Humpty Dumpty was slang for a short, fat clumsy person, but a person wouldn't shatter on impact, leaving the egg as the logical answer to the riddle.

I've found far more citations listing Humpty Dumpty as a war machine (see links).

Personally, I never questioned it because it was always illustrated as an egg.

Answer 2

"....the certainty that Humpty Dumpty is an egg isn't definitely reported in the rhyme. In its first revealed type, in 1810, that's a riddle, and exploits for misdirection the certainty that "humpty dumpty" exchange into 18th-Century reduplicative slang for a quick, clumsy individual. while an ungainly individual falling off a wall does not be irreparably broken, an egg could be. The rhyme is not posed as a riddle, simply by fact the respond is now so properly favourite...."

Answer 3

"Humpty Dumpty" was originally supposed to mean a clumsy person, but obviously a person can be put together if they broke a few bones, on the other hand an egg can't!

Answer 4

Because, for whatever reason, in the Mother Goose nursery rhyme books that were illustrated, he was drawn as an egg,and that has endured throughout the years since it first appeared.

Answer 5

I always kinda pictured Humpty Dumpty as a big fat toad... SPLAT.

Answer 6

maybe humpty falls off the wall like eggs falling of the table....

Answer 7

Because that is the picture that accompanies the nursery rhyme

Answer 8

Because thats what the writer of the poem decided he was when he wrote it.

Answer 9

he was not a egg he was a rainbow of skittles