# Silly rhymes your parents told you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 11, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751 "2013-06-11T21:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/141 "2017-09-20T22:36:25Z")
My mother always used to quote (well, still does quote) from _her_ mother: _Thirty days hath September, April, June, and no wonder. All the rest have strawberry jam, Except for Grandma, and she rides a bike._ ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/142 "2017-09-20T22:50:25Z")
From my dad, to my daughters: _Trot, trot to Oostburg to buy a pannekoek but when we get there, there wasn’t any bake trot, trot home again, met a big snake picked up a stone broke its backbone and galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped all the way home_ ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/143 "2017-09-21T02:33:23Z")
Several I heard from my father. There ain’t no justice in this fair land, I just got a divorce from my old man. He got the kids by the court’s decision, but the joke’s on him, the kids ain’t hissn. And, The rain it falls alike upon the just and unjust fella, The problem is, the unjust always has the just’s umbrella. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/144 "2017-09-21T03:48:24Z")
_Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake…_ Wait, what!? If I should die? Well fuck it, I’m not going to sleep then. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/145 "2017-09-21T03:52:46Z")
> [@zagloba](#): > > I’m not a pheasant plucker, > I’m a pheasant plucker’s mate. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgifazVS2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgifazVS2U) at the 2:00 minute mark. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/146 "2017-09-21T13:54:03Z")
> [@AllShookDown](#): > > Our family, instead of “be very careful…” has “Watch out Janie or you’ll fall in!” (Using the child’s actual name, of course.) I think this is the first I’ve heard of any other family using this rhyme. We have four generations brought up on “trot-trot” now. I am an Old New Englander, borne and bred. This is obviously a Bostonian rhyme. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/147 "2017-09-22T07:39:17Z")
Oh, so this thread is alive again! My big brother used to tell a lot of these when we were young’uns, including that “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear” one. Here’s another one, but it has a faux-German-sounding word or phrase I could never make out. Maybe someone can fill in the blank(s)? \*My name is Mox, I sell the socks For \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Cents a box. The longer you wear them, The stronger they get. You dip them in water, They never get wet!\* He also often quoted this non-sense line: “I had one grunch, but the eggplant over there.” WTF? What’s that supposed to mean? Apparently, this or something similar was out there, because some years later I saw a variation on that in a MAD Magazine. Also: “Slip, sir, rock, sir, dropsy in the snide!” Now this one (I learned years later) was simply a thoroughly mangled version of a real expression: _It’s crackers to slip a rozzer dropsy in the snide_ That’s Cockney-speak for It’s crazy to bribe a cop with counterfeit money. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751/148 "2017-09-22T11:40:56Z")
From my grandfather: I went out one morning to call on Miss Brown She was up in the bath, said she could not come down. I said “Slip on something, be down in a tick” - Well, she slipped on the soap and she did come down quick. From my mother (I suspect from hers, and I wonder about that family): Augustus was a charming boy, His father’s pride, his mother’s joy: He brushed his hair, he brushed his coat, He cut his nails - and the baby’s throat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-rhymes-your-parents-told-you/660751.md?page=7)