Mostly Mamina...blogging from A to Z ...N

N is for nursery rhymes

One of the most valuable gifts that my daughter received was a Mother Goose book. During her first months, I spent some nostalgic moments flipping through pages of nursery rhymes and jogging my memory. 

These rhymes have certainly transformed over the years. It also definitely makes a difference if you're in the UK (or any of the Commonwealth countries I suppose) and  the US. 

Here rhymes have morphed into snippets that can be molded into the fabric of political correctness and niceness. So Humpty Dumpty no longer can end up not being put together by all the king's horses and men. He has to somehow get back on that wall again. (Though why someone would  want to be on the wall, is beyond my comprehension.)

Then there was a version of  'Twinkle twinkle' that I saw on You Tube. It started something like "Twinkle twinkle traffic light". I cringed and hit the stop button vehemently, so I can't tell you how that one went.

Not all rhymes have been transformed, though. One that clung onto its macabre verse is 'Rock a bye baby', which still ends in the bough breaking and the cradle and baby falling down to earth.  

I guess it's only a matter of time when the Political Correctness and Niceness Squad will bring down their truncheon on the rest.