A minor mondagreen

[Ron butters]

I never had any problem with the parsing. And it always made sense to me: He went to ask her hand in marriage and she said, "No thanks, I'm too young, and besides, Ma needs me to help her cook the meth."

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 6, 2011, at 5:16 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Is anyone else familiar with the children's song, "Billy Boy"? There's
> a verse in which Billy Boy states that he has
>
> … been to see Coowife(?)
> She's the joy of my life
> But she's a young thing
> And cannot leave her mother
>
> For about 65 years, I've assumed that "Coowife" was one of those
> fairy-tale names, like "Gawain," that simply exists. On a whim, I
> googled it and W:pedia'd it and found nothing. Then it struck me that,
> perhaps, I could find the song.
>
> I did find the song, with almost no effort. And there it was:
>
> Oh, where have you been,
> Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
> Oh, where have you been,
> Charming Billy?
>
> I have been to _seek a wife_,
>
> She's the joy of my life,
> But she's a young thing
> And cannot leave her mother.
>
> The song no longer makes sense. A guy goes to see a girlfriend named
> "Coowife" too young to leave home and get married? So what? This kind
> of thing happens all the time.
>
> But now, he's merely "*seeking* a wife," presumably some random woman
> that he has yet to find. Nevertheless, somehow, he *already* knows her
> well enough to consider her "the joy of [his] life," even though she's
> too young to get married!
>
> Let well-enough alone.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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