somewhere between iraq and michael jackson on the scale of importance
A bit of trivia, and then a question for you guys.
While valiantly avoiding anything vaguely resembling a college application today, I found a few rather useless websites discussing the origin of the popular children's rhyme "Pop goes the Weasel." The consensus seems to be that the rhyme is broadly about the ruinous practice of pawning one's belongings ("two to one you won't get your stuff back" was apparently the pawnbroker's motto -- perhaps not the optimal corporate slogan), and more specifically about a poor bastard who's drank too much (the "Eagle" in the rhyme is apparently the name of a London tavern) and has to pawn his tools (the "weasel") to pay his tab. "Popping," by the way, is slang for pawning, vernacular which seems to have survived in certain parts of England to this day.
Which calls to mind the colossal credit-card debt of the average American, as well as our staggering amount of debt as a nation, but I really didn't mean to start this line of debate.
Anyways, I was going to ask if any of you happened to know if there's any connection between the children's song "London Bridge is falling down" and GK Chesterton's "The Old Song" -- from which, incidentally, I derived the title of this blog.
By the way, "Pop Goes the Weasel" goes like this, in case you missed out on this completely unnecessary part of your childhood.
posted by ben @ 8:40 PM
2 Comments:
I definitely know that GK Chesterton wrote The Old Song centuries after London Bridge is Falling Down. Chesterton had some very interesting thoughts on poverty in London at the turn of the century, so the whole penny loaves melting away thing was probably an attempt to infuse some social commentary into a nursery rhyme already laden with a lot of history.
mmm you definately have too much time
or you're just finding very desperate ways to avoid the dreaded senior year glory
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