# The cheese stands alone **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 28, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618 "2005-03-28T16:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/1 "2005-03-28T16:36:49Z")
Does this phraise come from the childrens game “Farmer in the Dell” or has it an older origin? What does it mean to Americans? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/2 "2005-03-28T16:51:18Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > Does this phraise come from the childrens game “Farmer in the Dell” or has it an older origin? What does it mean to Americans? 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. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/3 "2005-03-28T17:54:25Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Daithi\_Lacha](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daithi_lacha/32/5430_2.png) [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/4 "2005-03-28T18:03:02Z")
Oh, that poor lonely cheese! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/5 "2005-03-28T19:59:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/6 "2005-03-28T21:39:57Z")
_[The meat, on the other hand, has frequent visitors.](http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=Unglued&name=the_cheese_stands_alone#)_ ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/7 "2005-03-28T21:53:13Z")
**Catalyst** that was my first exposure to this particular phraise. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/8 "2005-03-28T22:34:40Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/9 "2005-03-29T02:01:38Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/10 "2005-03-29T17:27:22Z")
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”? ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cheese-stands-alone/296618/11 "2005-03-29T23:59:32Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > Does this phraise come from the childrens game “Farmer in the Dell” or has it an older origin? What does it mean to Americans? _Peter Bazooka_ from [Death Rides a Pale Cow](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000003BLE/qid=1112141960/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl15/103-9920139-0102239?v=glance&s=music&n=507846) > [@The Dead Milkmen](#): > > Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday when I saw my congressman coming out of the titty bar. He didn’t look like my congressman, but that’s okay nobody really looks like themselves anymore. I think it’s got something to do with that crap they’ve been pouring into the water. > > I decided in might be wise to follow The Congressman just to see what he was up to. After all, my tax dollars **do** pay his salary. The Congressman got into a taxi, so **I** hailed a taxi, despite the obvious dangers involved. > > The Congressman was in taxi number 23 and I was in cab 17, but numbers are meaningless in this kind of cat and squid game. My driver was an aries and he laughed when I said “Follow that cab.”. And he kept laughing until he saw the cold blue steel of Little Elvis. “KEEP YOUR GOD DAMNED HANDS OFF THAT RADIO!” I warned him, “I WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT!”. This is actually a half-truth, I’m really a bike courrier- but I make a lot of deliveries to government offices. That’s where I heard about the **Cheese**. > > There’s a Super Secret government program called Operation: **The Cheese Stands Alone**. It’s The Congressman’s pet project. They claim that they’re giving surplus cheese to the needy. I, of course, have my suspicions. After 15 very quiet minutes, The Congressman’s cab pulled up outside a warehouse. I had the Aries circle around the building and drop me off. He seemed to grasp the importance of my mission, because he said I didn’t have to pay him. So long as I promised to stay very far away from him and his taxi. I swear, some people just don’t want to get involved. > > So I walked… into that cold, dark place… Little Elvis drawn and ready for **action**. I, too, was ready. Ready for the moment… when I would be… a Real American. What? I’m an American and that’s what it means to me.