Nursery Rhyme Query

[Wilson Gray]

On May 2, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Sam Clements wrote:

>
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Nursery Rhyme Query
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> From the archives:
>
> Date:         Mon, 14 Mar 2005 14:51:22 -0800
> From:         Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Swats was RE: adjective "Christian"
>
>
> OED has "paddywhack," as "a severe beating, a violent blow" from an
> English
> dial. source as recent as 1898.  "Paddywhack" was another of my
> grandmother's words, from NYC about 1895 or a little later. It must be
> significantly older than that in American use.
>
> As I heard it, it was a punitive swat with the hand on a child's rear
> end,
> certainly not a "severe beating" or "violent blow."
>
> And certainly its use was at least influenced by "paddle," if not
> descended
> directly from (unattested?) "paddle whack."
>
> OED also instances the song "This Old Man" from the 1920s.  Neither
> grandparent was familiar with this when I brought it home from school
> about
> 1958.
>

I know this only as a popular song, from the early or middle '70's,
IIRC. I wasted a lot of psychic energy trying not too hear the words,
because it was one of those accursed, devil-send songs that you can't
get out of your mind. I had no idea that its origin was as a nursery
rhyme.

BTW, guys, thank you for bringing it all back. With any luck, I'll have
the tune and the words out of my mind again by the end of the  month.
;-) Oh, well. I guess it's not all bad. I now understand why the damned
words didn't quite make sense, at least.

-Wilson Gray

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 3:40 PM
> Subject: Nursery Rhyme Query
>
>
>> Nigel Rees has the following query on his "Quote ... Unquote" website:
>>
>> Has anyone discussed the origins and date of this nursery rhyme
>> (oddly the
>> Opies ignore it): This old man, he played one / He played knick-knack
>> on
>> my thumb / Knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone / This old man
>> came
>> rolling home ... ?
>>
>> Can Barry or anyone else supply any information on this one?
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----
>> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF
>> QUOTATIONS
>>  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>> Yale Law School                             forthcoming
>> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu
>> http://quotationdictionary.com
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----
>>
>