Rhyme

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Customer Service
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 13, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, French

Rhyme – Cinderella

Cinderella, dress in yellow, went upstairs to kiss the fellow. She made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take…

Jesslynn heard this rhyme in the second grade when she was about 6. She said that the rhyme is used when her and other girls would jump rope. Also, she mentioned that the connotation behind is that girls in the age group get nervous about kissing boys so they might kiss something else because you are supposed to have your eyes closed when you are kissing. Since her eyes are closed, she cannot see exactly where she’s kissing and she might kiss something unexpected such as the wall and bust her lip, thus needing slight medical attention.

I agree, her point about the girls being nervous is right on. However, it also might be that since girls are in the ‘boys have koodies’ stage, they themselves don’t want to kiss boys. Therefore they chant about a figure that is supposed to be older and since they might have the frame of mind that kissing is yucky, they chant about the woman not kissing the guy. Also the fact that Cinderella is the female figure is quite interesting. Cinderella is one of the favorites out of all the Disney princesses, no its not surprising that the chant was made about her.

There is also a variation to this chant. In some another version, instead of going upstairs, she goes downstairs to kiss the fellow. Its not much of a difference, however it might be just a geographical thing for why there is a difference.