Fun at the Cook Shack: Who decided

Monday, February 18, 2008

Who decided

Who decided that Humpty Dumpty was an egg? I'm just saying, the rhyme doesn't say anything about an egg.

3 comments:

Tammy Lorna said...: Very interesting question Brecken!

According to Martin Gardner, in The Annotated Mother Goose, the Humpty Dumpty rhyme is a riddle, because "Riddling rhymes were a popular source of entertainment for many centuries". Any way, apprently the answer to the riddle is "an egg."

The first appearance of the riddle in print, in 1810, was a little different than our version:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
Threescore men and threescore more
Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.

There are, of course, lots of people who refuse to accept the 'egg' answer (I love people like that), and of course you can find their theories on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

My favourite is the cannon theory ;)

Well have a fabulous fun filled week writing your talk! (I have to teach the 16-17 year old Sunday school class AND releif society on Sunday! How did that happen?!)

xo Tammy; February 18, 2008 at 9:43 PM
Jessica said...: Brecken, you obviously don't spend enough time on Wikipedia. Apparently, it has an answer for everything.

I can't say I've ever thought about that question before though. I think there must be some deep, hidden meaning--Mother Goose was obviously determined to send subliminal messages to young, impressionable children using seemingly innocent rhymes.; February 18, 2008 at 10:07 PM
Margaret said...: Weird! I was also thinking about that the other day... I like the riddle theory, though.; February 19, 2008 at 10:57 AM

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