Have you ever noticed how horrible old.........?

Question

Nursery Ryhmes are?

The words are just so bad!!'

Ex: Rock a bye baby on the TREE TOP when the WIND BLOWS the CRADLE WILL ROCK when the BOW BREAKS the CRADLE WILL FALL and DOWN WILL GO BABY CRADLE AND ALL!!!

Ex: RING around ROSIES pocket full of posies ASHES ASHES WE ALL FALL DOWN
This one is actually an old song that children would sing because they were all getting sick (I can't remember why, I learned it along time ago in history class)

Anyway, the point is is that they are so horrible. Have you ever paid attention to that?

Answer 1

ring around the rosie is about the black plague. pocket full of posies because they didnt want to smell the decaying bodies that were eveerywhere. ashes because evertually they burned all the dead because there was no time to bury them, and we all fall down, dead... horrible!!!

Answer 2

Actually those very old nursery rhymes are no worse than some of what passes as music today. In a couple hundred years somebody will be asking a similar question about rap or hip-hop or rock. The fact that these rhymes, and some very old songs are still remembered is that they made, and continue to make an impression on many people. It's what makes them 'classics'.

A lot of the nursery rhymes were written for their time, just like the music of today. If you can find a copy of The Annotated Mother Goose, it will help put things in perspective. Sometimes the rhymes were social or political commentaries about events of the day. Others were simply silly children's ditties. Either way, they must have some significance if we still remember them, like it or not.

Answer 3

Yep, I've noticed this. But I think there are modern children's game that are just as horrible... The other day I was sitting on my patio and heard a group of five 9-11yr old boys chanting , "Smear the queer, smear the queer!".... apparently it involved one boy being tackled by a group of others.... strange what kids do to entertain themselves.

I think a lot of it has to do with a child's natural rebellious(sp) nature and that whole "being bad is cool thing"... I'm sure in the times of these nursery rhymes children did the same sort of things like making up horrible little songs and playing sad little games.

Answer 4

You're right, It's quite disturbing. I once read that was just the way that nursery rhymes were supposed to be. In many cultures they are songs with scary lyrics sung to children, but since they don't understand most of the time I don't think it affects them much until, like you, they're grown up and start asking themselves why were their parents singing such macabre to them.

Answer 5

Many old nursery rhymes were composed as codes for secret military operations. That's why some don't even make that much sense.

Answer 6

They are just motivators, meant to encourage some group activity and later to promote some creativity, when children (sometimes grown-ups too!) are encouraged to make up their own rhymes to match the tunes!

Answer 7

They were great until liberals came along. Generations of people grew up reading the old rhymes. 'Do-gooder' libs screwed that up. Now look at the crime rates, out of wedlock childbirths, drug abuse, alcohol abuse...... didn't have that when Hansel and Gretel pushed the witch into the fire.

Answer 8

It probably goes a long way to explain why humans are so screwed up.

Answer 9

They are linked to different times in History.

Remeber - they didn't have that much entertainment back then!!

Answer 10

Ah! songs depicting the plague, or the Black Death.