[Ads-l] Language and children; flee/flea. Was: Antedating of Flea Market

[Charles C Doyle]

Many of us oldsters, I expect, can remember the childhood rhyme, "The fly and the flea fell into the flue; / Said the fly to the flea, 'What on earth shall we do?' / Said the flee, 'Let us fly.' Said the fly, 'Let us flee." / So they flew through a flaw in the flue."

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at MST.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 11:03 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Language and children; flee/flea. Was: Antedating of Flea Market
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I've been collecting information on children's language, including

children's misperceptions of adult speech.  In this regard, I

noticed David Daniel's 2008 message below, in which a child

humorously mistook the verb "flee" to be the noun "flea."

Might I now ask David:  Does he have first-hand knowledge

of this humorous incident? (Did he hear it himself? Was it told

about a child of one of his friends or relatives?) Or was it

perhaps a fabricated bit of humor that can't reliably be judged

to have actually occurred?

Gerald Cohen

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Original message to American Dialect Society on behalf
of David A. Daniel (dad at POKERWIZ.COM<mailto:dad at POKERWIZ.COM>)
Sent: Wed 7/9/2008 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: Antedating of Flea Market

Sunday school teacher, reading Bible passage: "The man named Lot was warned
to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was
turned to salt."

Concerned four-year-old: "What happened to the flea?"
DAD
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