Tag Archives: elementary school

Rhyme – La Verne, California

Nationality: White
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: La Verne, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2008
Primary Language: English

Children’s Rhyme-Boys and Girls

“Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider; Boys go to Mars to get more Candy Bars!”

Steven said he learned this rhyme whenever he was in elementary school in La Verne, California. He went to Oak Mesa Elementary School and said he probably found out about it around the age of seven when he was in the second grade. He said that this rhyming game was common on the playground where many boys would all line up and sing this to the girls. At this time period, boys are not yet attracted to girls like they are in later years. Therefore, they come up with rhymes such as this to promote their status as the “cooler” sex. The boys are not the only ones that come up with little rhymes like this as many girls gang up on the boys as well. Steven said it is all fun and games and tempers are never flared.

Steven said that this rhyme is primarily said in order for boys to make fun of girls because they think they are better. It sounds childish now but then again, they were all children whenever they started saying all of this. Steven said that boys want to make fun of girls because they think that girls have the infamous “cooties” that every child believes in. Therefore, saying that girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider, the boys are implying that they are smarter than girls and that girls are just plain stupid. This does not make any sense because we all know that there is no scientific evidence proving that guys are smarter than girls. This is just children acting just as they should be with fun games and senseless rhymes.

When I asked Steven what this proverb meant to him, he responded like he was still in the second grade, saying that this proverb helps emphasize how boys are smarter than girls. He said that it reminded him of his childhood and the fun they had at their school recesses. Jokingly, he did add that he believes this proverb is correct because girls are not as smart as guys and the guys are the dominant sex. As ridiculous as that sounds, he did laugh and say that he misses his childhood and those continuous rivalries between boys and girls. He’s now over the whole girls have “cooties” thing and believes that all children should go through that phase.

When I read the proverb for the first time, I sat back and chuckled as it also reminded me of my childhood and the rivalries between boys and girls. Recess was a great time for children to poke fun at each other with little games and rhymes. I remember we used to do the exact same thing at our recesses. Overall, I think this proverb represents childhood in all the ways previously described. It obviously does not make any sense because children can not travel to different planets. However, it shows the creativity of children in the sense that they can come up with rhymes that relate to stuff they are learning in school. In this case, I’m sure that the children were studying planets so they found ways to connect planets with their rivalries with each other. Additionally, I think rhymes such as this are said throughout the country for all children to enjoy the intense rivalry with the opposite sex.

Rhyme – Conneticut

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mystic, CT
Performance Date: March 14, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Mr. Simonchini had a ten-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only nine-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a nine-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only eight-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had an eight-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only seven-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a seven-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only six-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a six-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only five-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a five-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only four-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a four-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only three-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a three-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only two-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a two-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only one-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a one-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now he’s got a weenie no more!”

I used to sing this song in elementary school with my friends about our librarian named Mr. Simonchini.  We all sang it to make fun of him because he was a goofy looking guy and probably because he was an adult figure and an easy target.  We would often sing it on the playground or on bus rides to and from school, because nearly everyone in my class knew the song.  Usually it consisted of a few kids joking about a reading assignment that he would make us do and then one of us would bust into the song.  I do not remember how I learned this rhyme, but I do know that I learned it early on in my elementary school career, sometime in the mid 1990’s.  Every now and then we would change the words so that it was someone else who had the “ten-foot weenie” and sing it about them, however with the fortune of our librarian having such a name that so easily rhymed with weenie, we often reverted back to the original form.  Only my classmates and I would use the rhyme and we never sang it around adults so we wouldn’t get into trouble.

I believe that this rhyme basically was a form in which we could show our feelings towards our library teacher, that is that we believed him to be a pervert of sorts.  The fact that he is showing his weenie to a female neighbor and her getting scared gives the vibe that he is not welcome in her home and that he is meant to be portrayed as a creep.  Most children at this age found this funny and we would often laugh about the thought of our teacher showing off his family jewels to a neighbor, only, to have her cut it off.

This rhyme can also be seen as a way for children to become acquainted with the idea of separate sexes and become used to talking about a male’s private parts.  Children have different ways of learning about the opposite and same sexes and this song was most likely a form in which we could make fun of a teacher while also making a taboo reference to a penis.

Rhyme/Game – New York

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Musician
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: April 25, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Playmate, come out and play with me

And bring your dollies three

Climb up my apple tree

Shout down my rain barrel

Slide down my cellar door

And we’ll be jolly friends forever more, more, more, more, more

I’m sorry playmate

I cannot play with you

My dolly’s got the flu

Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo

Ain’t got no rain barrel

Ain’t got no cellar door

But we’ll be jolly friends forever more”  (Repeat and increase speed)

Virginia told me that this is a handclapping game that she used to play when she was a little girl growing up on the elementary school playground in the 1960s near Westchester County in New York.  Usually two girls got together and sat across from one another and slapped hands and sang this tune to go along with the clapping.  She said that most girls on her playground knew how the song went and how the sequence of claps was, and like many playground games only the girls played this handclapping game. Virginia said that this also took place mostly on the playground, at lunch tables, or in the classroom when the teacher wasn’t having them do work.  She told me that this was not the only handclapping rhyme that she had learned growing up but it was the one that she remembered the words the best to.

Only the children played this handclapping game, as the adults were often shunned from this child’s play.  Also, Virginia said the better a girl was at handclapping, the more respect they had from among their peers and often the best clappers would face off against each other to see who would mess up first.

In reading through the lyrics of the song it makes sense that two girls would be singing this song to each other. The lyrics basically say that one friend wants the other to come out and play but the other replies that her dolly is sick so she can’t come out, yet they will continue to be friends anyways.  Girls were known to carry dolls in the 1960s, not boys.    Also, the fact that girls rarely associated with boys in elementary school gives this even more evidence that it was regarded as a strictly feminine game.  This rhyme reflects a girls desire to make friends and also children’s imagination by giving life to the dolls.

Rhyme – Connecticut

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Photographer
Residence: Mystic, CT
Performance Date: April 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Salt, pepper, mustard, cider

How many legs has a spider?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight (speed of rope is increased)

Gypsy, gypsy

Please tell me.

What’s my sweetheart going to be?

Doctor, lawyer, banker, thief,

Sailor, soldier, Indian Chief?  (Repeat all at even faster speed)”

My mother told me that she used to sing this jump rope rhyme when she was a young girl at Hindley Elementary School in Darien, CT.  She told me that there were always two girls at the end of the jump ropes and that boys never sang this song or participated in the jump roping.  My mom told me that typically this rhyme was sung during recess with classmates or even in her street back home with her sister and neighbors.  They would repeat this until the person jumping rope either tripped or just decided to stop.  My mom said that the goal of the jumping was to get faster and faster and see how fast you could go.  She also said that often another person would join in the jumping or would replace the person jumping without the ropes being stopped or the song being sung.

In examining the words of the rhyme it is clear that only girls should be the ones who sing it.  By asking the gypsy which one of the following male professions would be their sweetheart, it is quite clear that no boys would want to jump in on the game.  Also, the fact that most lines rhyme with the one before give it the unique rhyming quality that also makes it fun for young girls to sing.

This jump rope rhyme enables young girls to start thinking about their future and start getting used to the idea of having a man sometime at a later point in life.  It is a good way to subconsciously allow girls to start talking about the subject and make it more comfortable while gossiping with their friends about who their husband may be someday.  I am not sure of the usage of this rhyme today, but I would argue that it has probably decreased mainly due to the fact that the idea of the American family has changed a lot over the last 40 to 50 years.  The odds of a couple staying together are much less than they were a few decades ago, and because girls may have seen their own mothers and fathers part they may feel less secure about searching for the right man to marry someday, making this rhyme more obsolete in today’s world.

Catch Riddle

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Barbara, CA
Performance Date: March 25, 2008
Primary Language: English

Instructions in performing the Catch Riddle titled “Stop & Pots”:

  • Subject 1 asks Subject 2 to do two things
    • When Subject 1 says “stop”, Subject 2 must spell out “S-T-O-P” out loud
    • When Subject 1 says “pots”, Subject 2 must spell out “P-O-T-S” our loud
  • Subject 1 randomly alternates between saying stop and pots, nearly ten times.  Throughout this time, Subject 2 is constantly spelling the two words repeatedly.
  • Finally, Subject 1 asks Subject 2, “What do you do at a green light?”
    • Subject 2’s tendency is to say, “stop” even though that is the wrong answer, thereby being the catch riddle.

Eric, now a student in Santa Barbara, “learned this catch riddle in elementary

school when another boy pulled the catch riddle on me [him].  I fell for the catch riddle and actually said stop.  Most people actually fall for it.  I tried it out on my family when I first found out about it, and everyone except my mom fell for it.  The funny thing is that I haven’t forgotten the riddle and have actually used it as I have gotten older.  And still, even when people aren’t in elementary school and are more intelligent they still fall for the catch.  Anytime I say the riddle it brings back vivid memories of when I actually first heard it on the blacktops of my school where we played basketball at recess.”

When I first asked Eric if he knew of any forms of folklore, specifically jokes and riddles, he responded by beginning the process of this catch riddle.  I fell for it myself and then he went into detail about how and when he learned it.  It seems appropriate that these catch riddles would spread throughout elementary schools because kids find them extremely fascinating.  However, I am not certain that most originate at elementary schools.  One theory I have is that most originate amongst older children, anywhere from middle school to high school students, and they proceed to try out the catch riddles on their younger siblings.  Then, the younger siblings find the catch riddles amazing and cool, only to spread them across elementary schools.  This catch riddle seems appropriate to say to people of all ages, which isn’t always the case.