[Ads-l] Pop goes the weasel

[Jonathan Lighter]

I tried to post the following yesterday afternoon, but it has yet to
appear. Just in case it's lost in some cyber-dimension:

1853 W. Lambert Edmonds, ed. _The Cremorne Comic-Song Book, First Series_
(London: W. Allman) 9:

"POP GOES THE WEASEL!"
Written by. W. R. Mandale. Sung by W. L. Edmonds. Published by Brewer & Co.

In ev'ry street, on ev'ry wall,
 In ev'ry lane with hoarding,
In shops and stalls, both great and small,
 In windows and on boarding --
Placarded high and posted low,
 In letters large I see still,
Where'er I turn, where'er I go,
 "Pop goes the weasel!"
                Fol de rol de riddle ol,
                Pop goes the weasel!

[Read the whole song, if you haven't already, at https://tinyurl.com/kn7szxf
, pp. 9-11.  The exasperated singer cannot find anyone who can explain the
meaning of the phrase.]

JL


On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Mar 18, 2017, at 1:33 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Alternate version from 1858 with a dog chasing a weasel around a bramble
> bush, instead of a monkey around  a mulberry bush.
> >
> > "All around the bramble bush,
> > The dog chased the weasel,
> > The deacon kissed the Parson's wife,
> > Pop goes the weasel."
> >
> > The Indiana Herald,  15 Dec 1858,  Page 2. Newspapers.com.
> >
> “Ejaculatory pop” revisited?
>
> I like the hanky-panky with the deacon and the parson’s wife, but “monkey”
> does scan better than “dog”…
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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