“There was a farmer who had a dog, Bingo was his name-o…”
Is the dog named Bingo or is the farmer?
I’d like to hear your opinion, since I doubt the question is able to be answered with a hard fact.
Slainte.
I have always assumed that Bingo was the dog. The other two people in the room with me agree.
Bingo was the dog. The farmer’s name was Old McDonald.
“Old McDonald had a farm, ee - I -ee - I - oh. And on that farm he had a dog named B-I-N-G-O…”
No… wait…
nevermind.
I always sang it with an “and” between “dog” and “Bingo” which sort of sets off that second clause as being in reference to the dog, not the farmer. But that might just be me.
No, an “and” would have no effect on the meaning. But I agree, Bingo is the dog’s name. Unless the farmer’s name is (Old) Bingo McDonald.
Wow, I’ve just always “known” that it was the dog. Until I looked at this Thread, the grammatical ambiguity never even dawned on me. Thanks, Dan Turk, while you’re shaking my mind’s grasp of all reality you might as well now suggest that up is down and that black is white.
I still believe that Bingo is the dog, if for no other reason than that “Bingo” is more of a dog kind of a name than a human kind of a name. If Bingo is the farmer, then I would guess that the dog has a name like “Steven” or something like that.
I agree with the others. It seems obvious to me that Bingo is the dog.
There was a farmer had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
And Bingo was his name-o
Well, if the farmer’s name was Bingo, why mention the dog at all? It’s not as if it’s particularly unusual for a farmer to have a dog, and the dog isn’t mentioned anywhere else in the song (apart from when the line is repeated, of course). If old Farmer Bingo had an aardvark, that would be a different story…
I suppose you could reverse the question - if the dog’s name was Bingo, why mention the farmer at all? But I’d argue that there is a reason: our society is very anthropocentric. A farmer’s existence needs no further explanation. A dog, on the other hand, needs human context. Who owns the dog? Is he a farmer’s dog? Does he belong to a little boy named Billy? Is he a feral dog? The dog’s ownership needs to be explained explicitly so we can wrap our narrow, human-centred minds around the situation.
If you can’t be bothered reading my last post, my conclusion is this:
Bingo was the dog.
I’m not Bingo.
(he’s coming, you know)
'nother vote for Bingo the dog.
And another vote for Bingo being the dog’s name. But I am also another who had simply never questioned it until now. 
Oh dear. I love the SDMB cos it’s full of people who, like me, get all interested in useless information, but , OH!!! , now I am going to be pondering farmer>>>dog>>>Bingo all day!
btw - the “MacDonald” reference was a joke, I assume? (I’m a bit slow tody, due to a caffeine shortage.)
:eek: My daughter butchers the song in exactly this way… Her little mind just goes on cruise control and she switches right from one to another. The other two kids and I actually have fun with it…
Chicken…
Cow…
(snicker, snicker - do it Mom!) DOG!
Bingo was the dog.
But boy, am I going to have fun posing this one to Mr2U tonight - it’s going to make him crazy! 
Bingo is the dog, of course. Never crossed my mind that it wasn’t. As someone else said, it’s a dog’s name, and why mention the dog at all if it’s the farmer’s name. Now go clean your room.
Follow up:
Lets say it was the dog.
Did he have one dog named B-I-N-G-O
and another dog named B-I-N-G CLAP!
and . . .
Well, since you asked for me by name, 
my opinion is that Bingo is the dog’s name-o.
According to this site, neither the dog nor the farmer was actually named Bingo. Apparently, the farmer’s name was Irving and the dog’s name was Stanley. However, in the song the dog is called Bingo not the man. Amazing the crap you can find out there in cyber-spaced.
I know there’s gramatical evidence to support Bingo being the dog’s name. The dog is the object of the sentence or something. Does anyone who paid more attention in grammar class want to chime in?
Wait a minute here! You clap and take a letter from the end? We always clapped and took the letters off from the front.
B-I-N-G-O
CLAP-I-N-G-O
and so forth…
very interesting!