(no subject)

[rivka]

[Poll #930518]

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I can't really answer the first question, because growing up on Long Island, NY, we sang both versions as kids.

[geminigirl]

I grew up on Long Island as well and the only way I heard it as a child was "mulberry bush."

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

It's a folk song. Folk songs change. If you like "mulberry bush", go for it!

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

What? Me? A filker? Change the words?

As IF!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Is SE Texas by the Louisiana border Southeast or Southwest? Liminality, thy name is TexAnne. And I can't be sure that I didn't learn it from the Little House books--it was Laura's favorite fiddle tune, and they were my favorite books.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I called it Southeast.

[ailbhe]

I grew up in Ireland and learned the rhyme from Laura - never heard it locally. (So cobbler's bench).

[ladyvonkulp.livejournal.com]

I love your polls, no two ways about it.

This is actually an argument Paul (4YO) and I were having a few months ago. He's got a toy that does 'mulberry bush' and I remember 'cobbler's bench' and pulled out the supporting songbook.

Heck, there are a lot of kids nowadays who only know 'Pop goes the diesel' from Thomas the Tank Engine and have never heard of the original. Scary.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Heck, there are a lot of kids nowadays who only know 'Pop goes the diesel' from Thomas the Tank Engine and have never heard of the original. Scary.

*wince*

This is currently a subject of hot debate at our house because I learned "cobbler's bench" and Michael (my husband) learned "mulberry bush." Alex's nursery rhyme CD says "cobbler's bench," but according to Michael, the library story hour leader says "mulberry bush."

This morning, Alex was going around and around the glider in her bedroom, chanting:

Round about and round about I go [1]
Round the mulberry bush, mulberry bush, mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
Round the table in the nursery [1]

...so I guess we'll call her eclectic.


[1] from A.A. Milne, "Busy."

[roozle.livejournal.com]

If it's "mulberry bush" then the next verse --

A penny for a spool of thread
a penny for a needle
that's the way the money goes
POP like the weasel

doesn't make as much sense.

I was born in NJ and then we moved to Ohio and Michigan for about 3 years and then back to NJ. So would those states be mid-west?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

...and interestingly enough, Michael (who learned "mulberry bush") doesn't know the "penny for a spool of thread..." verse, while I (who learned "cobbler's bench") do.

Damn, I should have included that as an additional variable.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Not quite neither of the above, because I've read the mulberry bush version, but the classic UK version is:

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle.
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.
Up and down the City road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

One explanation goes as follows:

'To "Pop" is the slang word for "Pawn". Weasel is derived from "weasel and stoat" meaning coat. It was traditional for even poor people to own a suit, which they wore as their 'Sunday Best'. When times were hard they would pawn their suit, or coat, on a Monday and claim it back before Sunday. Hence the term "Pop goes the Weasel"

but I've also heard that 'weasel' was the name for a particular bit of tailoring equipment. Though pop in the sense of pawn still applied in that rescension.
No monkeys, to the best of my recollection, in the versions heard in my childhood.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I'd heard that "weasel" was slang for "means of earning a living". So the monkey was chasing the cobbler's thread and so forth around the bench, and got it all ruined, and then it had to be replaced.

[geekchick]

I just finished reading Heavy Words Lightly Thrown recently (interesting book, although kinda light on the sourcing), and it uses this verse:

All around the cobbler's bench
The monkey chased the people.
The donkey thought 'twas all in fun,
Pop! goes the weasel

That variant I'd never heard, I assumed it was just a difference between US and UK versions of the rhyme. I learned the mulberry bush version when I was little, I don't think I heard the cobbler's bench variant until much later.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that if you really wanted to mess with Alex's future teachers' minds, you could teach her to hellspark "All around the mulberry bench" and "All around the cobbler's bush" (but that latter could be problematic, so never mind).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

"Mama believes it's this way, and Papa believes it's that way" is a good lesson for a child to learn, and will later have applicability to such questions as the divinity of Jesus.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I learned both versions of the song while I was very young. My father favored the mulberry bush, while my grandmother (the Irish one) favored the cobbler's bench complete with the penny for the spool of thread.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Funny, we've been having a similar debate about the alphabet song, and I've been meaning to ask opinions in plan_survive.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Now I know my ABCs
Next time, won't you sing with me.

Alex's nursery rhyme CD ends it with "...tell me what you think of me," which I hate. Let's introduce preschoolers to the joys of defining our worth by our academic accomplishments!

Whichever

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Folk process in action,dude.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Pop Goes the Weasel is one of the songs that got me interested in thinking about the content of nursery rhymes, and what the words *actually* meant. I just read Heavy Words Lightly Thrown (eh, it was okay). Wikipedia has interesting entries on a lot of different nursery rhymes.

I've heard both versions, but I slightly prefer the cobbler's bench.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Cobbler's bench and "a penny for a spool of thread" here, learned in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1960s.

I also learned a further verse:
"Johnny has the chicken pox
Mary has the measles
The monkey takes the doctor's bag, and
Pop! goes the weasel!"

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Or, wait a minute, I think Johnny had the whooping cough.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Half a pound of tupenny rice, half a pound of treacle
That's the way the money goes
Pop! Goes the weasel!

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I was living in (northeastern) OK when I learned it. Some people consider it part of the SW, others, notably, Oklahomas, do not. Some consider it part of the South, repeat as above.

Eastern Oklahoma is very southern in culture and values, western Oklahoma is very western in culture and values. I say Great Plains myself.

MKK

[brooksmoses]

But ... but ... "cobbler's bench" doesn't scan!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I sort of wind up saying "cob-buh-ler's bench." Which does not affect my extreme certainty about the rightness of this version.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Didn't we just cover this? Sure, we did.

K. [it's a debate for the ages, no question]

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

I automatically went Mulberry bush - but then went HUH? Asked my mother and aunt who both just happened to be visiting and got "Its cobblers bench". For context - I'm Australian with English South African Mother and English father.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

By the way, I asked Dale last night to recite the first verse of "Pop Goes the Weasel". Add another southerner to "All around the mulberry bush".