West Virginia Folklore (1950s), especially children's rhymes (Liar Liar, 1958)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 05:14:36 -0800, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>This jogged my memory. The entire quatrain I learned from my grandmother
>was
>
>One more day and we'll be free
>>From this school of misery !
>No more pencils, no more books,
>No more teacher's dirty looks !
>
>She learned it in the 1890s.

"A few more days and we'll be free
>From this school of misery.
No more pencils, no more bo[o]ks,
No more pencils, no more books."
--Lima Daily News (Ohio), June 8, 1920, p. 5

Hard to find early cites for the whole quatrain-- usually only the second
couplet is given (or even just the first line of the couplet).  There are
also a lot of variants for the teacher's looks (Barry mentioned the
"saucy" and "sassy" variants in a Jan. 28 post):

"No more pencils, no more books..."
--Washington Post, Jun 22, 1919, p. 15
--Los Angeles Times, Jun 18, 1921, p. II6

"No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's horrid looks."
--Chicago Tribune, Jun 18, 1921, p. 17

"No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's angry looks."
--Appleton Post Crescent (Wisc.) March 24, 1922, p. 11
--Chicago Daily Tribune, Jun 27, 1931, p. 3

"No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's saucy looks."
--Decatur (Ill.) Daily Review, June 05, 1924

"No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's sassy looks."
--Los Angeles Times, Jun 8, 1924, p. 39
--Washington Post, Jun 11, 1925, p. 2
--Los Angeles Times, Jun 12, 1926, p. 6
--Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb 4, 1929, p. 25

"No more pencils, no more books,
No more teacher's cross-eyed looks."
--Washington Post, Apr 2, 1926, p. 1

The earliest I can find for the "dirty looks" variant is from the New York
Times, Jun 24, 1938, p. 18.  That article also gives this earlier couplet:

"Good-bye, scholars, good-bye, school,
Good-bye, teacher, darned old fool."

Here's another early one:

"Vacation's come, and we are free.
No more school for you and me.
No more Latin, no more French,
No more dunces on a bench."
--Los Angeles Times, Jun 29, 1901, p. 16

There are also variants that have the last line as "No more sitting on a
hard-wood bench."  And there's a similar couplet, "No more Latin, no more
Greek / No more sitting on a hard-board seat."


--Ben Zimmer