Does anyone know the origin to the nursery rhyme "One, two buckle my shoe"?
351750
it is used to teach numbering sequence and rhyming
671669
It came from England, bobby.  When women first started getting jobs on sailing ships, the sailors needed a polite way to say "I have to urinate". Since the bathroom cost two cents ( two pennies, or 2P), in those days sailors politely informed each other "I have 2P".
621745
It is indeed rhyming slang, originally from the East End of London, but taken to Australia by English emigrants. The source is the phrase cobbler’s awl.\n\nAn awl is an ancient pointed tool for making holes in things, the most characteristic tool of any leatherworker; it was an essential part of the shoemaker’s kit, since he was forever piercing leather to sew pieces together. So a cobbler’s awl was as characteristic of his trade as his last, or foot-shaped anvil.\n\nThe rhyming slang linked cobbler’s awls with balls, that is, testicles. As was usual with such rhyming slang phrases, the first word later appeared on its own as a kind of half-disguised code, so cobblers! came to be used in the same way as balls!, as an exclamation of derision or disbelief, suggesting something was rubbish or nonsense. The examples in the big Oxford English Dictionary suggest that this last sense is actually quite recent, only being recorded in print from the 1950s onwards (though very probably older in the spoken language).\n\nA load of old cobblers is an intensification of that, once commonly heard in London as well as in Australia and also in other Commonwealth countries. Americans seem never to have got into the habit of using cobblers! (or indeed balls!), though British cop shows exported to North America have made both retorts familiar to many there.
292922
not so sure of the origin and history behind the phrase but if you find it ranining cat's and dogs be careful not to step in a poodle... i looked it up for you and yu can find the answer at the link below
469691
It wasn't Lincoln who coined this phrase. The first person to use the pharse was Aesop in his tale "The Four Oxen and the Lion" In this story the oxen would defend themselves against attacks from the lion by standing tail to tail in a circle so that the lion would meet only horns when attacking them. Eventually, the oxen got into a fight and separated. This left the lion a chance to atttack them all and eat them. The moral of the story was "united We stand, divided we fall" \n\nYes, abe Lincoln did use it later on and that perhaps is how it became popluar in America. Patrick henry also used this phrase in his last speech before his death in 1799. He was upset over the possible division of Virginia's house of Representatives.
627130
This expression originated in the United States in about 1900. The phrase may have some Latin connection. When a Roman boy was in trouble, he cried ‘patrue mi Patruissime’ (‘Uncle my best of uncles’).
793275
The Shoe Fairy \nThe inspiration for the Shoe Fairy came from a little boy who wore these shoes to school one day in the snow. He didn't want to go outside for the first recess. After finding that his family would not be able to buy him new shoes till spring/summer, my daughter and I decided to buy him a new pair of shoes. \n\nA few mornings later we decided to take them to school and give them to him. My daughter did not want him to know that they were from us. So Kylee, who had just recently lost a tooth, and had a visit from the Tooth Fairy, came up with the idea of telling him that the shoes were from the "Shoe Fairy". \n\nWe took the shoes to her class and told this boy that the "Shoe Fairy" had come to our house to give her little brother a pair of shoes but they were too big for him. We knew that he needed a new pair of shoes and told him that if they fit he could have them. \n\nWhen he tried them on, he looked at me with the biggest grin on his face and said, “They fit, can I really have them?” The look on his face touched me so much it made my heart smile. I told him that of course, he could have them. I then asked him if I could have his old shoes? He asked what I was going to do with them? I told him that I would give them to the "Shoe Fairy" and she would make a new pair of shoes out of them for another little boy who may need shoes. \n\nThat was the day that I knew that I had to take this feeling I had in my heart and do something good with it. \n\nMy goal is to make sure that no matter what the circumstance, kids in Elementary Schools have good shoes. \n\nI buy gift cards from Payless Shoes in the amount of $15. These gift cards will be given to children that are in need of shoes. I have met with many Elementary Schools in Utah, and let the teachers know that if they notice a child that needs new shoes, to contact me. I will then give the teacher a $15 gift card to Payless Shoes. The teacher will give the child the gift card and the child, with their parents, can go and pick out a new pair of shoes for themselves. \n\nI started this program in February 2002. The Shoe Fairy is a non-profit organization and is registered with the IRS. 100% of the donations go directly to the shoe cards. \n\nThank you so much for all the donations. Please know that they are keeping children in warm shoes this year and for many years to come. \n\nThe Shoe Fairy is a non-profit organization 501 c-3 76-0797007. \n\nGod Bless You \nWendy and Kylee Olsen \n\n\nDonations can be sent to: \nThe Shoe Fairy \nP.O. Box 1451 \nOrem, UT 84059
858701
blimey, there's a bast from the past!\nMolly & Polly Glossop\nhttp://www.pigeonstreet.com/characters.php\n\nOh I see what you did there, that's just mean, can't get the damn song out of my head now!
457033
Speculation about its origin is found in Eric Partridge's "Dictionary of Catch Phrases":\n\n"'Come up and see my etchings' was, perhaps, orig. a US students' catchphrase that rapidly gained a much wider currency: throughout the US, thence in Can. and UK and, prob. indicative of US influence in 1943-5, Aus. Formerly I suspected that it was prompted by [Mae West's] 'come up and see me sometime!'; yet it could well have been the other way about. In his letter . . . Prof. S. H. Monk writes: "I am certain that I knew this sentence by the midtwenties. Actually I knew no one who had a collection of etchings or who was suave enough to seduce a young thing in this manner. But the phrase certainly floated in and out of cartoons and jokes. To me, it has an 1890-ish or Edwardian tone, and I suspect that it existed in 'sophisticated' urban society before it ever reached me. I think that this can still sometimes be heard, but it is definitely 'corny'."\nPerhaps confirmatory of Prof. Monk's shrewd remarks is the fact that in Susannah Centlivre's comedy, 'The Man's Bewitched' (1710), Act III, where Belinda, Maria, Constant and Lovely are in the study, and Lovely exclaims, 'Interrogating! Nay, then 'tis proper to be alone; there is a very pretty Collection of Prints in the next Room, Madam, will you give me leave to explain them to you?' Maria answers, 'Any Thing that may divert your Love--Subject.'\nIt should, however, be noted that this catchphrase perhaps derives from Surreyside melodrama--the villain enticing the innocent maiden."
1002332
“What’s your name? "\n"Puddin Tane.\nAsk me again, and I’ll tell you the same.”\n\nAll I know is the it is considered a "traditional African American children’s rhyme."  I looked and looked...this was all I could find.
24023
This is one version of the rhyme:\nHalf a pound of tuppenny rice,\nHalf a pound of treacle.\nThat’s the way the money goes,\nPop goes the weasel.\n\nUp and down the City road,\nIn and out the Eagle,\nThat’s the way the money goes,\nPop goes the weasel.\n\nEvery night when I go out\nthe monkey’s on the table.\nTake a stick and knock it off\nPop goes the weasel.\n\nA penny for a ball of thread\nAnother for a needle,\nThat’s the way the money goes,\npop goes the weasel.\n\nAll around the cobblers bench\nthe monkey chased the people;\nThe donkey thought ’twas all in fun,\npop goes the weasel. Before anybody rushes to put fingers to keyboard, let me say that this is by no means the only version of the lyric. There are several others, especially from the United States. But this is the usual British version, a famous catchy rhyme (or at least, as you say, the first two verses are).\nThe earliest reference I can find to music with this name actually comes from the United States, from sheet music entitled “Pop goes the Weasel for Fun and Frolic”, published in 1850 by Messrs Miller and Beacham of Baltimore. Another from three years later refers to “the latest English dance” and also “an old English Dance lately revived”, so it seems to have been imported from Britain. None of these early versions had any lyrics apart from a repeated “Pop goes the weasel”, the catch line of the dance, which was sung or shouted by the dancers as one pair of them darted under the arms of the others. Several references in books and magazines suggest that the tune soon became extremely well known, and that pop goes the weasel became a catchphrase, as it later did in Britain. There have been suggestions that the phrase was intended to be ribald or erotic, though the explanations I’ve seen are somewhat fanciful.\nFollowing first publication of this article, David Joyce wrote that: “The tune is a version of that used for the country dance, The Haymakers, which has the same form as Strip the Willow, and Bab at the Bowster (a couple hold hands, forming a bridge, which the other couples have to pass under). The tune was published in Gow’s Repository, issued in four volumes between 1799 and 1820. Thus the tune was around at least half a century before the American publication of Pop Goes The Weasel, but is certainly very much older. (It is similar to the tune used for Humpty Dumpty, and not far removed from Lilliebulero and Rock A-bye Baby, all jigs traceable back to the seventeenth century.)”\nThe first British mention of the phrase pop goes the weasel dates from an advertisement by Boosey and Sons of 1854 which described “the new country dance ‘Pop goes the weasel’, introduced by her Majesty Queen Victoria” (a puff to be taken with a large pinch of salt, we may assume). It would seem from the dates that the title was taken from the American publication of 1850.\nTalking of Queen Victoria, I found these words attached to the tune in the March 1860 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia:\nQueen Victoria’s very sick,\nPrince Albert’s got the measles.\nThe children have the whooping cough,\nAnd pop! Goes the weasel. Her Majesty would not have been amused.\nYour version was a British music-hall song of the latter part of the Victorian period (quite when I haven’t been able to discover); it is highly probable that the words were composed to the tune of the earlier dance because everyone on both sides of the Atlantic seems to have the same one, even if the words are different.\nSome of the references are now quite opaque, but we can take a fair shot at a few. In the second verse, the City Road was—still is—a well-known street in London, more than a mile long. The Eagle was a famous public house and music hall, which lay near the east end of the road on the corner of Shepherdess Walk; this had started its life as a tea-garden, but was turned into a music hall in 1825 (one of the very first); it e
637194
Plague theory\nA common belief is that the rhyme commemorates the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England. However, this is relatively unlikely. This implies an origin as early as the 14th century for the song, but this is possible only if it were recited for centuries without being written down (as it first appeared in print in the late 19th century).\n\nIn this "plague" interpretation, the first line refers to the round red rash that would break out on the skin of plague victims. It can also refer to when a black ring was 'branded' on infected person's right arm. The second line's "pocket full of posies" would have been a pocket in the garment of a victim filled with something fragrant, such as flowers that aimed to conceal the smell from the sores and the dying people. A second possible explanation for this line is that it referred to the purported belief that fresh-smelling flowers, nosegays, and pomanders would purify the air around them thus warding off disease. A third possibility includes the idea that "posies" are derived from an Old English word for pus, in which case the pocket would be referring to the swelling sore.\n\n"Ashes, ashes" may refer to when people alive and dead were gathered up into piles and lit on fire alive in a belief that burning the diseased bodies would not allow the disease to spread. Several alternate endings to the song exist, one being: "atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down", the theory is that this would refer to the fact that plague sufferers would suffer flu like symptoms before eventually succumbing to death (also, Pneumonic plague had flu like symptoms as well as acute coughing and sneezing). Another is "Husha, Husha, we all fall down.", the word "Husha" being the sound made from the last escaping breath of a dying person, which is generally described as being longer and more sustained than expected. "We all fall down" refers to the fact that everyone is dying. It is believed the American version "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" was an alteration of the original English version because it was more suited to local cultural preferences.\n\nThe first time the nursery rhyme was suggested to be plague related seems to be in 1961, James Leasor's book The Plague and the Fire. However, it is not clear whether Leasor concocted the plague interpretation on his own. The rhyme was first published in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes (1881), centuries after the plauge swept Europe; and there is no evidence of an earlier version. Further, many early versions of the rhyme omit the lines used to support the Plauge theory. Because of this, some have suspected this theory to be false. (see external links)
321737
Nope, wasn't just in your town, believe me... kids said it EVERYWHERE...\n\nI never heard the broken ladder chant, but the belly itcher was around in the early 70s, and I'm sure for quite a while before that... (I know my generation wansn't THAT creative as kids, I'm sure we just picked it up from someone who was around before our time)...
630220
the shortest nursery rhyme is told by someone with A.D.D.\n\n"mary had a little...look a bird"
756426
GEORGE DE MESTREL, and William otis both invented two important things which people are not aware of.  If you recive this it is your task to find out.  i give you a clue for one look at the end of your shoe lace.
1170816
This originated in the early 1980s. It is generally regarded as an American expression. This item from the New York newspaper the Syracuse Herald-American, Feb. 1982, which is the earliest version in print that I can find, puts that in some doubt. It's in a piece by Jerry Buck, writing out of Los Angeles, about actress Lauren Tewes
224792
The Mary alluded to in this traditional English nursery rhyme is reputed to be Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary, who was the daughter of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and the garden referred to is an allusion to graveyards which were increasing in size with those who dared to continue to adhere to the Protestant faith - Protestant martyrs.\n\nTheres more at the following link: Quite gnarly details!\nInstruments of Torture!\nThe " Maids" or Maiden was the original guillotine!\nExecutions!\nhttp://www.rhymes.org.uk/mary_mary_quite_contrary.htm