The cheese stands alone

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Does this phraise come from the childrens game “Farmer in the Dell” or has it an older origin? What does it mean to Americans?

2

I believe so. And since it’s the last item on the list, it has come to mean “the end”.

Of course, it does not address the issue that if one cuts the cheese, one then stands alone. :smiley:

3

I’ve been surfing and Googling, and I can’t find out anything more than “it’s from a children’s game”. (Although apparently it’s the name of a well-known Buffy and Angel fansite… :dubious:)

Is this a job for Cecil?

4

Oh, that poor lonely cheese!

5

There’s a relatively famous “young adult” novel by Robert Cormier called I Am the Cheese. I haven’t read it, but from what I understand, the title is a reference to this phrase.

6

The meat, on the other hand, has frequent visitors.

7

Catalyst that was my first exposure to this particular phraise.

8

A variant Farmer in the Dell has the cheese pick the ketchup, which then stands alone. I have no idea what the deeper meaning of lonely ketchup might be.

9

I’ll have to say that the phrase “the cheese stands alone” comes from the kids game “Farmer in the Dell.”

I can find, using newspaper database searches, the "Farmer in the Dell’ from 1903, and “the cheese stands alone” as the final verse from a bit later, around the 1920’s, although I’m sure it was in the original.

I’m also pretty certain that this rhyme goes back well before 1900, I"m just not up to going to the Univ. of Akron library tonight to search the shelves for a good book on US nursery rhymes.

Maybe later.

email me to remind me to do this, if you really want to know.

10

Thanks samclem did you find anything?
How would you use the phraise “the cheese stands allone”?
Is there any link to “Who moved my Cheese?” which seems to be another weird American phraise.
And any of these linked to “The Big Cheese”?

11

Peter Bazooka from Death Rides a Pale Cow

What? I’m an American and that’s what it means to me.