Marziedotes-n-doziedotes
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:04 pm
For Amusement Only
Okay, this is NOT a serious post. Still, I am quite sure that I am not the only person to have experienced the following phenomenon and, for amusement, I thought that you might like to share your own anecdotes. Here goes:
Marziedotes-n-doziedotes
When I was a small boy, my father would rock my younger sister on his knee, all the while singing softly to her, what I understood to be: “Marziedotes-n-doziedotes ‘n liddle lamzy divey. A kiddldee-dyvee-do, wouldn’t you?” Time passed, we grew older, and my father ceased singing this little rhyme. Then, about 30 years later, whilst watching a late-night re-run of an old Bing Crosby film from the 1940’s, I heard the star character sing the same little song. However, his rendition was: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kiddle-dee, dyvee-do, wouldn’t you?” And it struck me, so THAT was what dad had been singing! Both my parents were raised in England, they spoke with fairly strong accents, and they imported with them “tonnes” of amusing little rhymes and colloquialisms from their homeland that I never heard outside of our family home. At times, these appeared to me to be a jumble of nonsensical words or indecipherable sounds. And yet, as in the previous example, many years later, I would come across more understandable versions and I reacted with the same sense of surprise and pleasure.
Your Experiences?
I’d bet my bottom dollar that you have had similar experiences from your own childhood and I thought that you might like to share a few anecdotes. The language in which this occurred is of no importance at all. For me, the more interesting aspect is how, as children, we perceive some rhymes and how, as adults, we react with surprise and pleasure many years later when we finally figure out what our parents had been saying. So, have at it!
Okay, this is NOT a serious post. Still, I am quite sure that I am not the only person to have experienced the following phenomenon and, for amusement, I thought that you might like to share your own anecdotes. Here goes:
Marziedotes-n-doziedotes
When I was a small boy, my father would rock my younger sister on his knee, all the while singing softly to her, what I understood to be: “Marziedotes-n-doziedotes ‘n liddle lamzy divey. A kiddldee-dyvee-do, wouldn’t you?” Time passed, we grew older, and my father ceased singing this little rhyme. Then, about 30 years later, whilst watching a late-night re-run of an old Bing Crosby film from the 1940’s, I heard the star character sing the same little song. However, his rendition was: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kiddle-dee, dyvee-do, wouldn’t you?” And it struck me, so THAT was what dad had been singing! Both my parents were raised in England, they spoke with fairly strong accents, and they imported with them “tonnes” of amusing little rhymes and colloquialisms from their homeland that I never heard outside of our family home. At times, these appeared to me to be a jumble of nonsensical words or indecipherable sounds. And yet, as in the previous example, many years later, I would come across more understandable versions and I reacted with the same sense of surprise and pleasure.
Your Experiences?
I’d bet my bottom dollar that you have had similar experiences from your own childhood and I thought that you might like to share a few anecdotes. The language in which this occurred is of no importance at all. For me, the more interesting aspect is how, as children, we perceive some rhymes and how, as adults, we react with surprise and pleasure many years later when we finally figure out what our parents had been saying. So, have at it!