Think back to the rhymes and chants of pre-K, you would be surprised to know that your kids know the same chants. How is it that these childish rhymes are passed so flawlessly along from generation to generation?
Of course i am reffering to the naughty ones that you wouldn’t find in Mother Goose and Grimm.
Just for the record, I’ve never heard the one in your title.
as for the question you ask, it seems evident to me that such rhymes are permanently in circulation, so they get passed on. Also, there is likely a sort of evolutionary process going on. Rhymes that are memorable (good rhythm and rhyme that makes it easy to remember, content shocking enough to be memorable but not too gross as to be disgusting even to the chanter) survve. Those that don’t, because of hard-to-remember or recite structure, nonmemorablre content, simply don’t survive, or mutate and either get streamlined into such a form or disappear shortly.
I think you mean “just the size of Montreal.”
Me either, but I felt strangely drawn to it.
I know you are, but what am I?
My daughter likes making those fold-up-paper-triangular-fortune-telling-origami-thingies from time to time.
Girls don’t skip rope any more! Gone are the skipping rhymes that were ubiquitous for girls of my generation (late 60s / early 70s).
Urban legends among kids are still the same. I wonder if they know the one about Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa?
Nor I, but now I must know not too big or small for what exactly?
It’s “just the size of City Hall.”
the rhyme in the title goes like so: Jessica and Andrew sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love then comes marriage then comes a baby in a baby carriage! Not too big, not too small, just the size of a doody ball!!!
My own dear sister recently taught one to my 12-year-old son, thus guaranteeing that the following gem from our childhood will be preserved and passed (!) on:
Deep in the heart of the African jungle,
Listen to the sounds of the constipated ape!
Ungh! Ungh! It won’t come out!
Ungh! Ungh! It won’t come out!
I myself have wondered how rhymes, chants, and songs are passed from child to child, having participated in a few myself back in The Day. Of particular interest to me are the semi-vulgar and, let’s face, genuinely vulgar chants (“Got a skeeter on my peter, whack it off!”) that I heard and learned in my summer day program. Parents and teachers sure as hell aren’t teaching these songs to the kids, leading me to believe that the kids teach them to each other.
IOW, as CalMeacham said, the songs are just there, in circulation, and as one group of kids ages out of the need to sing them, another group of kids ages into it.
Friends may come,
And friends may go.
Friends may peter out, you know.
But we’ll be friends through thick & thin,
Peter out, or peter in.
who the hell made these rhymes up? no kid is creative enough.
Oh! I always heard, “Then comes a baby in a baby carriage! Suckin’ his thumb, wettin’ his pants, trying to do the hula dance.”
I told my kids the “Milk, milk, lemonade/Round the corner, fudge is made” rhyme, and they supplied another line, “Stick your finger in the hole/Hey look! You got a Tootsie Roll!”
And a great counting-out rhyme that went “Dip, dip, dog shit/in a rubber ball./If you cut it open/you can have it all.”
I’m familiar with the start of the rhyme, but I never heard it extend past “…then comes childen in a baby carriage.”
They probably do, but now it’s Justin Timberlake and Fitty-cent!
I actually never heard that one until I was in my 20s:
There’s a skeeter on my peter whack it off!
There’s a skeeter on my peter whack it off!
There’s a dozen on my cousin
You can here the f__kers buzzin’
There’s a skeeter on my peter whack it off!
It’s still one of my all time favorites! 
That’s the ending I heard as well. I was debating on whether or not to admit that was how I used to say it, but since I’m not the only one, I don’t feel quite so silly.
What the hell does a hula dance have to do with anything?!?
Heck, I’m more worried about the turd-sized kid. He won’t be out of the hospital any time soon.
Besides, with the hula-dance thing, you get the chance to slip a third name in (in place of “baby”), thereby irritating three kids for the price of two!
I personally like the one I heard on a Simpson’s episode:
Lincoln Lincoln
I’ve been thinkin’
What the H___ have you been drinkin’?
Is it water, is it wine?
Oh my god it’s turpentine!
For some reason, it just cracks me up every time.
In my neck of the woods, it was followed by:
Then comes [name of someone else within earshot] in a baby carriage
sucking [his/her] thumb
pissing [his/her] pants
doing the hula hula dance
While kids probably pass on these rhymes to each other, I’m sure adults played a major role in the changeover from “n****r” to “tiger” in Eenie Meenie Miney Moe.
EDIT: I wonder if anyone sang this anywhere else outside of my hometown.
Michael Michael motorcycle
blew a fart and fell apart
Other names could be substituted for “Michael”, but Michael was the most common name used.