Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah

[couw]

  maren said:

I never realized it meant sharpening a knife! But now that makes sense, like raising a fist in a very symbolic way, just for a kid to look at, or pretending to cut your throat, to signify that someone's "cruising for a bruising" (as my father used to say).

maren, I do not thing there is any of that hidden agression here. As far as I know the sharpening guesture is a mere association of the word "uitsliepen," which even has a different origin AFAIK, with the word "sliepen." I really, very much doubt that there is any hidden knife-cutting contest in all this.

Of course I can't be sure.

[RDK]

Makes me wanna go out and get a shave and a haircut.

Only costs two bits...

[Alexander]

  maren said:

Here in NYC, when my son was little, kids would say "oooohhh" with that same rising intonation -- starts out low, ends high -- when a kid got in trouble with a teacher.

When I was in elementary school (late 1970s) "ooooooh" was used in the cafeteria whenever anybody broke a plate (which happened quite often, as I recall). The cafeteria monitors hated this and would hold up two fingers (the "v-for-victory" or "peace" sign, depending on your generation) to quiet us whenever it happened. I can still remember, very clearly, how all conversation would cease as soon as a plate broke, and the whole cafeteria would erupt with "oooooooooooh!"

[Alexander]

It's been noted elsewhere that the universal "pointing up" gesture (accompanied by a shaking finger) denoting shame has different meanings in different countries. In Russia, it means "God in heaven is watching you." In Germany (I think) it means "something is coming to you" and becomes the representation of a club or truncheon. Wish I could rememeber where exactly I read that (aside from Nabokov's "Pnin" which makes a reference to this phenomenon).

[Dr. Rat]

  Quote

The Opies?!

Iona and Peter Opie, a British couple, spent their lives studying folk tales, children's games and rhymes and songs.

The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is probably their most famous book. There are a ton of others, including The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, The Classic Fairy Tales, and Children's Game in Street and Playground.

Plus collections of the things they've found. I have this one, which is good for reading with kids:

Cool. This begins to look like what i think I remember.

Somebody I was casually acquainted with in grad school gave me the rundown in the smokers' lounge one day (I don't smoke, but I always preferred the smokers' lounge) and let me leaf through the book.

I have always cherished this image of a permenant "underground" culture that we all, temporarily, participated in.

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

Yes the Opies seem to be it. Thanks, Maren.

Here's a link to the new edition of The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren for anyone who may be interested.

Later in the book there's even a chapter called “Unpopular Children: Jeers and Torments,” no doubt containing a detailed accounting of nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah and its many local variants.

--eric

[Chrome]

Naughty Rhymes: What Did Jack & Jill Do on the Hill?

Tue Mar 2, 2004 08:53 AM ET

By Sophie Walker

LONDON (Reuters) - Bed-hopping royals. Religious hatred. Teenage sex. Obesity warnings.

Tabloid headlines? No, Britain's favorite nursery rhymes.

Parents may throw up their hands in horror but a new book says that playground ditties are drenched in sex, death and violence and prove that many 21st century concerns have been around for a long time.

"Some were clearly adult rhymes which were sung to children because they were the only rhymes an adult knew. Others were deliberately created as a simple way to tell children a story or give them information," Chris Roberts, author of "Heavy Words Lightly Thrown" told Reuters.

"Religion, sex, money and social issues are all common themes and although there is a tendency to look at history through the concerns of the present it was something I was led to rather than sought to do," Roberts said.

As an example, one of Britain's most popular nursery rhymes, "Jack and Jill Went up the Hill" is according to Roberts the tale of two young people losing their virginity, Jill possibly becoming pregnant and the regrets that come later.

"The interesting bit is that, having successfully 'lost his crown,' it's Jack who runs off rapidly, probably to tell his mates what happened," Roberts said.

In an alternative second verse the sexual association of the rhyme becomes even more blatant, Roberts added. Instead of his head, Jack has a different part of his anatomy patched up with vinegar and brown paper.

GOLDEN AGE

Although some nursery rhymes appear to have their origins in the Middle Ages, their golden age was the period between the Tudor monarchs and the Stuarts.

This was Britain's formative age, says Roberts, as it covered among many other things the Act of Union, which brought together Scotland and England, the Civil War and the growth of Empire and trading. The Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible were published in English rather than Latin and caused even deeper rifts between Protestants and Catholics These were heady topics to cope with, so why not keep it short and tell it in rhyme?" Roberts said.

His book grew from research for a series of walking tours around London. Some rhymes like Oranges and Lemons -- a guide to the City of London which also doubles as a saucy wedding song -- cropped up obviously. In other cases geographical research revealed social history such as the fact that prostitutes in the Southwark area of London (where licensed brothels existed) were called 'geese'.

Thus the rhyme "Goosie, goosie gander/Where do you wander?/Upstairs and downstairs/and in my lady's chamber" can be read as alluding to the spread of venereal disease -- known as 'goose bumps' because of the swelling. It also tackles a dispute between King Henry VIII and the Catholic church, which owned the land upon which the brothels were operating and profited hugely.

From "Mary, Mary quite contrary" and its references to the 'cockles' (cuckolds) believed to be in the promiscuous court of Mary, Queen of Scots to "The Grand Old Duke of York" -- about a former Duke's inept military strategy against the French -- sly digs at princes and popes alike were commonplace, Roberts's book reveals.

"Georgy Porgy pudding and pie/Kissed the girls and made them cry" has been interpreted as gossip about a supposedly gay courtier George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 1592-1628, but more likely was a warning to young men that overeating puts the ladies off.

NEW ERA OF FOOTBALL LULLABIES?

Increased freedom of speech, literacy and communication, eventually did away with the need for allegorical rhymes. Then came the Victorians, who viewed childhood as an innocent state where 'adult sights' should be hidden.

"During the 19th century the rhymes were increasingly written up, illustrated and sold as collections for children. They became more accessible, but also less potent," said Roberts.

Many of today's children's songs are deliberately composed as such, making the roots of the next generation's nursery rhymes more anodyne. However, the need for "tribal chanting" as Roberts puts it, is still present, and most obvious in football songs, which he suggests could be tomorrow's lullabies.

"They are about the only thing that are 'composed' anonymously and known and sung by thousands of people," he said.

"Pop songs still occasionally eulogize celebrities and make social comments but their authorship is known whereas football songs are, in a sense, true folk songs belonging to a tribe of people rather than an individual," Roberts added.

"Words change their meaning and associations alter over time so if the person singing the song doesn't know the real (or even perceived) meaning of the song it can be fitted to other uses," he said. "I do know fathers who croon football songs, that are after all rarely complex tunes, to help their children sleep."