h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Oranges and Lemons' - The Nursery Rhyme - A691481
Author: Linda - U290

Thinking my Edited Entries section looked a little dull, I've written my first entry.

Hi Linda,

Great stuff, thanks. Very interesting and informative.

Couple of typos for you:

>>St Dun[ ]tan

>>canNonised (unless it's not what I *think* it is )

>>that that (St Martin's) - than that

------------------

Incidentally, who on earth was St Martin?! I don't recall any mention of him in the Bible...

Oh yeah, are you *sure* you didn't make any lines up to go into the full version?

Good stuff, anyway,

Seeya
Spiff

Linda (or as I used to know you, Mina)
Impeccable timing! My other 'arf, Sue is currently teaching her kids about London using nursery rhymes, and she was looking at this rhyme, London's Burning and London Bridge is Falling Down. this is a great entry and will be incredibly useful!

Now if you can furnish info on the other two rhymes, Sue needn't do any prep work...

Well Done
The FM

Interesting stuff. It brings back childhood memories of when we used to play this game. I can't remember all the details so we might have played it just as you discribe. But it seems to me that the first part of the game is pointless if the children are already divided into oranges and lemons. I was wondering if the children should be divided alternately as they are caught.

'At the last line of the rhyme the children bring their arms up and down in a chopping motion over each child that goes through'

This might be clearer if you said 'choppers' instead of 'children' ie:

'At the last line of the rhyme the choppers bring their arms up and down in a chopping motion over each child that goes through'

You might want to explain what 'farthings' are for the benefit of younger researcher and the rest of the world.

Anyway good read.

Hi Linda! This is a good entry.

You mention the Great Fire a few times, but don't say when it was. Not everybody will know the date off the top of their head.

"Saint Sepulchre does not exist" - I think this should be rephrased as "There was never any person called Saint Sepulchre".

I don't understand what you are saying about the five farthings debt.

Punctuation:

church. 20 --> church; 20

Could I suggest a link to my A506350 Old English Money
Is it no longer called Eastcheap, then? I used to work there in my youth as a temp

Hi again,

I just thought I'd mention the other sense of 'saint' in French. 'Saint' means 'sacred' or holy in French, as well as the English sense of 'canonised person'. So 'the Holy Sepulchre' is referred to as 'le Saint Sepulcre' in French.

It may just be coincidence, of course. But in theory it could be that 'Saint Sepulchre' somehow came to be known by the French form of 'Holy Sepulchre'?

This does not quite gel with your explanation of the name, and indeed, calling an individual church 'Holy Sepulchre' may not have been a terribly 'Catholic' thing to do in the 14th C, so my theory is probably to be taken with plenty of 'sel', but I liked the linguistic co-incidence here anyway.

Seeya
Spiff

I thought that was what Linda was saying. There are loads of Church of the Holy Sepulchres around Europe and presumably this is another one. Holy Sepulchre in Latin/French is Saint Sepulchre.

If I remember correctly, this rhyme gets significant play in the book 1984. Don't know if it's necessary to mention in the entry, though.

Lochinvar

Hi, Mina!

I really like this - it's an interesting view of something that's often just skipped over.

I was a bit confused by the the bit where you said about St Mary-le-Bow: 'In the late 13th Century 38 people died in the church. 20 when a balcony fell, one murder, 16 hangings, and one woman was burned here. The church was closed until it could be reconsecrated.' Were these hangings public executions (since you don't list them as murders)? I find it hard to believe that they could ever have had official hangings *inside* a church in the Middle Ages. Also, which one of the incidents was the one that required reconsecration - I would guess that it was the murder, but I'm curious.

How early a record is there of the 'full' version of the rhyme - is it regarded as the original, or as a later elaboration? I'm curious about this also.

And on the point already raised by others - I agree that some version of 'Saint Sepulchre was not a person' is better thatn 'Saint Sepulchre did not exist'. (To digress: the same confusion about the use of 'Saint' in the original meaning of 'sancta' as 'holy' also shows up in the name of the great church in Istanbul, which is often called 'Saint Sophia' in English rather than the church of Holy Wisdom).

Azara

I really like this entry.

Children's nursery rhymes are a fascinating subject. A couple of years ago around Christmas there was a series of five minute programmes on Radio 3 about nursery rhymes (at rather a silly time, I remember). I managed to miss most of them, unfortunately. Hush-a-bye-baby turned out to be something about not wanting to pay taxies to the priests!

A big from me.

I wrote a nice long reply thanking everybody personally, and the computer ate it. Here's the short (-tempered) version.

Thanks to everybody that commented, I've done most (all?) of the changes suggested.

Azara, that info on the deaths in the church is all I could find. I will try other sources to see if I can get any more details, but I'm not sure I will be able to.

I also couldn't find out which is the oldest recorded version of the rhyme. I started with the short version, as most people have never heard the other one. I'll try and look into that as well.

Updated.
Some information that I couldn't confirm (or was just plain wrong) has been removed, and there are another two sections.

The 'rumour' that it appeared in 'Demaundes Joyous' as early as 1511 I am trying to find out for sure, and if it did, in what form.

, Linda!

Azara

Wish I'd written it!

I read this entry once before, I thought I had answered. I'm glad I re-read it. It was interesting. I had heard something about it on one of the documentary Chanels on cable in th US. Great back ground work on all the churches in the rhyme. Very Enlightening.
Looks good probaly has already pasted.
The KID.

Great entry Linda.



- X

Thank you. (Still to be called that online. )