Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Jun 10 01:12:36 UTC 2007


At 4:01 AM -0700 6/9/07, Margaret Lee wrote:
>Speaking of pasta, another was,
>
>   On top of spaghetti,
>   All covered with cheese,
>   I lost my poor meatball,
>   When somebody sneezed.
>
>   It rolled off the table,
>   And on to the floor,
>   And then my poor meatball,
>   Rolled out of the door.
>
>   --Margaret

Yup; that was the "pasta substitute" to which I referred (below).
But I'd forgotten the second verse.

LH

>
>   Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>   At 9:23 AM -0700 6/8/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Another fave at the time was,
>>
>>  On top of Old Smoky,
>>  All covered with blood,
>>  I found my poor teacher,
>>  With her face in the mud.
>>
>>  I don't believe anyone got in trouble for singing these songs, but
>>I couldn't be everywhere. Personally I found them disturbing,
>>especially when sung by little girls. The fad didn't seem to last
>>more than a couple of weeks, though.
>>
>>  JL
>
>I obviously lived a more sheltered life: no loaded .44s, no
>school-burnings, not even any blood, just assault by decomposing
>tangerines and, for Old Smoky, a pasta substitute.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>
>>
>>Charles Doyle wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: Charles Doyle
>>Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 08:50:15 -0700
>>From: Jonathan Lighter <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
>>
>>Ah, yes, the TEACHER: that forbidding (if not malovelent) figure
>>looming in the psychological landscape of American children--fair
>>game for those hostilities that attachments to actual parents would
>>make difficult.
>>
>>On top of old Smoky, all covered with sand,
>>I shot my old teacher with a green rubberband.
>>I shot her with pleasure, I shot her with pride.
>>I couldn't have missed her; she's forty-feet wide.
>>
>>--Charlie
>>_____________________________________________________________
>>
>>As I remember it:
>>
>>Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
>>We have tortured every teacher; we have broken every rule.
>>We'll go down to the office and we'll hang the principal,
>>As we go marching on.
>>
>>Glory, glory, hallelujah!
>>Teacher hit me with a ruler!
>>I bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine,
>>As we go marching on.
>>
>>The "tangerine" line was sometimes replaced with, "I met her at the
>>door with a loaded .44." And sometimes both were sung in tandem,
>>with the bean-bopping coming first.
>>
>>"School days! school days! Dear old Golden Rule days!" --_Old song_
>>
>>(Sniff.)
>>
>>JL
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
>>Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos
>>new Car Finder tool.
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!
>Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list