Didn’t there used to be a Doper called Elemenope?
Haha I was wondering how many people were going to quote that version and say “hey i like it!” without noticing it didn’t even have all the letters.
Whenever I’ve heard the alphabet songs in a context where it’s actually for little kids to learn it, they slow down and enunciate the LMNOP part. It’s really not difficult.
:shakes tiny fist:
Nope. See link in post #19.
UV is invisible. 
There’s a Disney character called El Emenopio.
Anything after Saturn is just outer Uranus.
I’m seriously ashamed to admit that this is the first time I realized that the alphabet song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star share the same tune. It’s obvious now that you say it, but I never made the connection
Ever heard of Baa Baa Black Sheep?
This is what I did with my kids.
Wikipedia says that all three songs use the melody of a French song, “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman”.
What do you have against U and V?
Also, yes I do use it as an adult. I think it’s because I’m a more auditory learner, but for at least some letters, I can’t immediately name the letters on either side of it, or I’m not positive when I do, so I mentally run through just a snippet of the alphabet song to confirm. I freely admit that this may be weird, but my guess is that at least some other adults do this too. It’s just about how the information is stored or accessed in your mind.
I haven’t listened to the changed version, but I wouldn’t care if my kids were taught it. I don’t have that kind of nostalgia for the alphabet song, and if kids aren’t confused by it, that is better. It’s true that most kids figure it out relatively quickly, but why use something they have to decode to teach them the alphabet?
I think if we flunk those pre-schoolers, they’ll know we mean business and will pick up the new version.
Am I the only one who actually thought “elemeno” was a letter as a kid?
Granted, I figured it out by age four or five, but still. I was as outraged over the newfangled nonexistence of the best-named letter as, well, most people in this thread are over the song change.
I’ve heard in the 19th century it was common for people to take a well known melody and write new words for it, which I’m sure it why these songs all share the same melody.
And regarding the Alphabet Song, I’ve heard that it’s actually not a very good teaching tool. All kids really learn from it is what order the letters come in. A better one would be one that names objects that start with each letter.
How would that help you learn alphabetical order?
If the song still listed the objects in alphabetical order I don’t see why it wouldn’t.
For example when I was a kid we had a tape that included a song that went something like:
Apple, apple, ah ah ah
Baby, baby, buh buh buh
And so on.
ETA: And IIRC it came with an illustrated book so you could see what letter when with what object.
While that would be a good start on teaching what the letters were, it would end up way too long to be an efficient way to memorize their order.
Say what you will about lmnop, but once you do know what the letters are, the unaltered song does an excellent job of turning the dry recitation of the letters into a mnemonic. Which is pretty much the main reason turning it back into a dry recitation is a terrible idea. You want your kids to know that lmnop isn’t a letter? Teach them the letters directly! But don’t mess up the song!
This is the REAL alphabet song.
SWING IT!!