This little piggy did what?

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Have you ever sat down and thought about the words of old school fairy tales and nursery rhymes? When you do, a lot of questions are raised.

Like the This Little Piggy ryhme:

This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy had roast beef
This little piggy had none
And this little piggy went “wee wee wee” all the way home.

Right, so the first piggy went to market – to be sold as meat or to get groceries?

The second piggy stayed home – ok, so it sounds like they have domestic lives and the first one only went to get vegies. Or is the second piggy being spared for another day…?

The third had roast beef – something about that doesn’t sound right for some reason. Do pigs eat cows? Did the first piggy pick up a roast from the butcher’s on his way to the market last week?

The fourth piggy sounds like he didn’t pay his share of the food bill – or the third piggy was a greedy bastard. Why are piggies eating roast beef again?

And is the fifth piggy being dragged to his home (where assumedly all the other piggies live) or to a human’s home to be slaughtered? Sounds brutal to me.

Also, they obviously couldn’t think of another word to rhyme with “home” as they had already used it in the second line.

Alas, we will still teach our children this rhyme – I know I will :)

Humour

4 Comments to This little piggy did what?

sarah hannah
August 6, 2009

ummm…. actually, i do sit there and wonder about nursery rhymes!!! i even wikipedia origins of some… how embarrassing.

‘ring a ring a rosey’ is about the plague, ‘they all fall down’ being everyone dyiing. charming.

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Chickie Little
August 7th, 2009 at 2:55 pm

Yeah I remember learning about that in Intermediate – not the nicest of rhymes but you never get told the meanings when you are little. I guess that it doesn’t matter too much as long as they rhymed and were fun to say :)

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ela
August 7, 2009

Yeah, I never got that either. Rome, Dome, Foam…you’d think they’d pick a word that rhymed with home to make it make more sense. I always loved when my mom would do it – made me giggle everytime :)

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x Corrine/Frock & Roll x
August 10, 2009

Hahahahaha, brilliant :) An interesting thing to ponder as I continue to sit here and avoid my study notes.. d’oh!

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Eggshell Green

It’s not always black and white