# Humpty Dumpty--bringing it all together again \*(long!)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [August 19, 2002, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531 "2002-08-19T00:14:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2002, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/1 "2002-08-19T00:14:36Z")
**Dex** wrote the original report [Why is Humpty Dumpty portrayed as an egg, even though eggs aren’t mentioned in the nursery rhyme?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhumpty.html) back in April, 1999. There have been many threads about this column.
I didn’t want to add a reply to just one thread, because there were questions brought up in each thread that were new and need answered. Not that I have the final answer. Just trying to add info.
Unless otherwise noted, all of my answers are based on my 1997 edition of _The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes_. The authors, Iona and Peter Opie, are pretty well-respected experts on nursery rhymes.
From [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=1588&highlight=humpty+dumpty](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=1588&highlight=humpty+dumpty) , **PapaBear** asked if the answer(an egg) to the riddle was cited in the first appearance of the rhyme(supposedly 1810). The answer is no. The use of “egg” doesn’t seem to appear until Lewis Carroll. Carroll’s use of the egg would certainly indicate that the rhyme was a riddle at some point in history. Ms. Opie suggests that the riddle was so well known that it wasn’t included in much earlier books of riddles. Too common.
**The Great Rupert** brought up the story about a “seige engine” (during the Cromwell period) being the source of the rhyme. UNfortunately, this idea came from a spoof article written in 1956, by the _Oxford Magazine_. Sorry, Rupert.
In [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=2019&highlight=humpty+dumpty) thread **Reuben Marchant** suggests that it referred to Charles I. Perhaps the fake article again? Anyway, Charles I is not likely. **DSYoungEsq** suggests that the earlier mention of Humpty-Dumpty as a drink is what the rhyme is referring to. It could be, but I would tend to disagree. The drink reference actually only appears in print in 1798, and the first appearance of the rhyme is not actually 1810, but rather 1797. It appeared as text in something called _Juvenile Amusements_ with the last two lines as
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> Four-score Men, and Four-score more Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
What do you make of the fact that part of the rhyme is in a book called **Juvenile Amusements**? Lends pretty good weight to a kids riddle theory and the answer being an egg rather than a glass of beer. There is also an 1803 cite with the line “Could not set Humpty Dumpty up again.”
In [This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=2750&highlight=humpty+dumpty) we get the first whiff of the Tower of London guides pratter about Richard III. While I can’t tell you where the story started, it was popularized by none other than Robert Ripley(Believe it or Not) and we simply don’t believe it. Nor does any serious researcher. **Dex** brings up a great point in this thread, which no one was able to follow up. Ms. Opie does it stupendously.
Dex said
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> In _The Annotated Mother Goose_ by William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould, it’s mentioned that there are analogues of “Humpty Dumpty” in several other European languages. The Baring-Goulds aren’t a completely trustworthy source either, but if it’s true that riddle rhymes very close to “Humpty Dumpty” are known in several other languages and in each of those languages is a riddle rhyme for which the answer is “an egg”, it seems to me that this would be pretty good evidence that this rhyme does not refer to a historic event but is simply a riddle. So, can some speakers of other languages tell us if there are riddle rhymes in their languages similar to “Humpty Dumpty” whose answer is “an egg”?
I won’t bore you with Ms. Opie’s cites, but suffice it to say the first was Danish, from 1820-23, by J.M.Thiele. I’ll quote the English translation for brevity. “LIttle Trille Lay on a shelf; Little Trille Thence pitch’d himself; Not all the men In our land, I ken, Can put Little Trille right again.” If you need the original, I can supply it. She then offers the same rhyme in Swedish, German, etc. All before Carroll. But she indicates they probably all go back to the English. **Polycarp** said
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> Nonetheless, Humpty is probably not Richard but an earlier Duke of Gloucester, Humphrey, brother of Henry V, who was a rather self-important and imperious Regent of England under the infant Henry VI until overthrown (“a great fall”) a few years into the reign. He was eventually executed. The ease of conversion of Humphrey into Humpty is pretty obvious.
Actually, Ms. Opie touches on this. That theory has been advanced by a serious scholar who wrote the _Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names_ saying that pet names for Humphrey were _Dumphry and Dump_.
The final observation is that the _OED_ cites Humpty Dumpty **first** in any context from 1785, by Grose, who wrote a dictionary of words which were not always used in polite society. He said " a little humpty dumpty man or woman; a short clumsey person of either sex. " Predating that cite, Ms. Opie says "The earliest reference to Humpty Dumpty as a squat, comical little person appears(in an engraving)…sometime between 1754 and 1764. “Sir Humpty Dumpty fierce as Turk, At Captain Doodle runs his fork.”
I’m sorry if people are offended by the length, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/2 "2002-08-19T02:46:53Z")
It’s okay–we understand you have no life. 😃
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### Author:  [@ndixon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndixon)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2003, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/3 "2003-10-08T11:07:00Z")
Another theory is that it’s about Cardinal Wolsey falling out of favour with Henry VIII.
Cardinal Wolsey lived at Cawood Castle (a few miles south of York) for nine months, to prepare for his enthronement at York, but was soon arrested by order of King Henry VIII on a charge of High Treason in 1530. Wolsey was reportedly quite short and dumpy, too.
Apparently he was in the habit of walking the walls of Cawood Castle, and liked to sit on the high tower wall, from where he could see the cathedral in York, looking forward to the day of his enthronement.
But Cardinal Wolsey failed to get permission from the Pope for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.
Wolsey was arrested by the Earl of Northumberland three days before his enthronement, and charged with high treason. Already unwell, Wolsey died three weeks later on November 29, 1530, in Leicester Abbey, on his way to face trial in London.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/4 "2003-10-08T21:18:01Z")
Enthronement? What kind of “enthronement” would Wolsey have been expecting?
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/5 "2003-10-09T00:07:56Z")
Not speaking to the “Humpty-Dumpty” aspect (which strikes me as improbable), but this would be his enthronement as Archbishop of York. He had held the office on paper for 16 years, but had never actually been to York.
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### Author:  [@Steven\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_G)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2003, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/6 "2003-10-10T11:09:23Z")
Just for completeness, the theory of origins in the English Civil War often refer to an alleged incident at Colchester. In this case “humpty Dumpty” is a defending cannon (for the Royalists in the city) and the Roundheads destroyed the wall (sometimes tower) where it was located.
The incident may have some truth, but the details of the story are very variable. There is no way to definitively link this to the rhyme, and even historians in Colchester are dubious about it (from the Colchester Museums site
[http://www.colchestermuseums.org.uk/QandA\_html/Q&A\_home.html](http://www.colchestermuseums.org.uk/QandA_html/Q&A_home.html)
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### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/7 "2003-10-10T21:48:41Z")
I’ve looked through the threads linked by the OP and nobody seems to have pointed out that the French word for “a little egg” is “un p’tit oeuf”, pronounced “Umpty Duh”. From there to “Umpty Dumpty” is just a matter of completing the rhyme.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/8 "2003-10-10T22:17:23Z")
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> _Originally posted by hibernicus ]I’ve looked through the threads linked by the OP and nobody seems to have pointed out that the French word for “a little egg” is_ “un p’tit oeuf”, pronounced “Umpty Duh”. From there to “Umpty Dumpty” is just a matter of completing the rhyme. \*\*
I’m clueless about French. But is that _truly_ how the phrase is pronounced? how does “un p” turn into “ump” ?
What I forgot to offer in my OP is that the OED cites the words first from 1699, in a different context:
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> ```
> Cant name of a kind of ale.
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> 1699 BENTLEY Phal. Pref. 33 He is better skill’d in the Catalogues of Ales, his Humty Dumty, Hugmatee, Three-Threads, and the rest of that glorious List, than in the Catalogues of MSS. a1704 T. BROWN Wks. (1760) IV. 218 (D.) No hugmatee nor flip my grief can smother
and a second citing from the OED:
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> 1698 W. KING tr. Sorbière’s Journ. Lond. 135 (Farmer) He answer’d me that he had a thousand such sort of liquors, as Humtie Dumtie, Three Threads.
The theory is that this probably goes back beyond the written cites. They are just nonsense rhyming words.
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### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2003, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/9 "2003-10-11T13:36:59Z")
It’s probably just a coincidence. But to answer your question, **samclem** , “un p’tit” _truly_ sounds almost exactly like “umpty”. Why? Well, the “n” is not pronounced as such in the French phrase; it is just a nasalisation of the preceding vowel. There are three nasal consonants in English: /n/, /m/ and /ng/. The difference between /n/ and /m/ is that the breath is stopped at the lips for /m/ but by the tongue against the hard palate for /n/. When the next sound is a /p/, which requires the lips to be together, the nasal sound therefore takes the form of an /m/.
Actually, I’ve just realised, “un p’tit oeuf” would be pronounced “umptyduff”, not “umptyduh”, so my point is somewhat weakened.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humpty-dumpty-bringing-it-all-together-again-long/124531/10 "2003-10-12T03:45:15Z")
Yeah, **hibernicus** , it’s possible to find multi-lingual puns in lots of areas… especially nonsense words in one language that seem to “sound like” some phrase in another language. F’rinstance, [What’s the origin of “abracadabra,” “hocus-pocus,” and “presto”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990326.html)