I recently recited the nursery rhyme of toes in the hearing of my friend Pari. You know...the one that goes: "This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home..."
Well, Pari was born and raised in India and apparently, there is no correlating rhyme like this in her culture. Of course, she had heard it since moving here several years ago, but she said something very thought provoking, something I had never considered before. After I ended with the piggy that went "weeee weee weeeee! all the way home," she said very seriously, " But wasn't he already home? I thought only one went to market."
This raises some very good questions. Where was that last little piggy coming from? And why did he say " Wee wee wee" all the way home?
Did the roast beef have anything to do with this? I know this messes with the whole toes thing but are there really only two piggies in this story? Is the piggy who went to market the same one who had roast beef and the one who went weeee weeee weeee! all the way home? And then there is the second piggy who stayed home and didn't have any roast beef?
Who can enlighten me here? Isaac?
5 comments:
I think probably that there were five, just because we usually finger a different toe for each piggy. Where the fifth piggy was, however, I have no idea. Maybe he was the one who bought the roast beef for his brother, and the story is just not written in chronological order. (Poetic license, and all that.) :)
I had to google it of course. It looks like it originated as a children's toe/finger counting thing just as we know it so each piggy must be different as Aaron says. But, yeah, Pari has a good point...one version says that the little one cried, 'I can't find my way home' which is no help at all really.
I can't believe I'm even discussing this.
Do we have enough toes to get the full story??? ...does it all conclude with bacon? 8~)
I always thot weewee was referring to a bodily function and wondered how that escaped notice from the ParentPatrol[also known as the PP, hahahahahaha]. Guess I've been wrong all this time...
Okay, so here's my "didn't grow up in America" moment...while I know OF the piggy song, I don't think I know any of the actual lyrics.
The same goes for the patty cake song. I think I might know half.
Oh dear! What will I ever sing to my children?
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