A minor mondagreen

[Dan Goodman]

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      A minor mondagreen
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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.

In the version I remember:

I've been to see my wife,
She's the darling of my life,
But she's too young
For to leave her mother.

Not too young to be married, then; but too young to live with her husband.
 (Which may not make any more sense.)

A verse I learned later, not intended for children:

Did she light your way to bed, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Did she light your way to bed, charming Billy?
Yes, she lit my way to bed,
But she shook her charming head,
She's too young for to leave her mother.


--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
http://dsgood.dreamwidth.org

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