The childhood song 'Ring Around the Rosie' is a reference to what?

soonappear

Mother Goose and gmackematic's unsubstantiated piffle on #57190. http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question57190.html May 10 06, 2:44 AM

SENTENTIA

Every child has happily joined hands with friends and recited the familiar nursery rhyme, "Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." Few people realize to what this seemingly happy little nursery rhyme actually refers. This nursery rhyme began about 1347 and derives from the not-so-delightful Black Plague, which killed over twenty-five million people in the fourteenth century. The "ring around a rosie" refers to the round, red rash that is the first symptom of the disease. The practice of carrying flowers and placing them around the infected person for protection is described in the phrase, "a pocket full of posies." "Ashes" is a corruption or imitation of the sneezing sounds made by the infected person. Finally, "we all fall down" describes the many dead resulting from the disease. According to the site "Snopes", this is FALSE. "Like 'A Tisket, A Tasket' or 'Hey Diddle Diddle' or even 'I Am the Walrus,' the rhyme we call 'Ring Around the Rosie' has no particular meaning, regardless of our latter day efforts to create one for it. They're all simply collections of words and sounds that someone thought sounded good together." A lot of info is given to debunk the idea that it has anything to do with the plague. Read on!! http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm May 10 06, 6:55 AM

Waggette

In England (where this rhyme originates) we have always held the belief it refers to the Black Death in the 14th Century or the Plague in the 17th Century (around the same time as the Great Fire of London in 1666). Actual lyrics here are generally: Ring a ring of roses A pocket full of posies Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down. Refute or not, I still will hold the belief that Ring a Ring of Roses is older than days of yore and the words (whilst not written down in an anthology of nursery rhymes until later) have just been handed down from family to family, along with legend of its origins. May 10 06, 9:26 AM

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