Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2343-2347 (17-21 December 2012) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
Method of Madness:
Maybe it has do with burning the corpses to slow the plague from spreading?
Kugai:
Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of Master Blaster from Beyond Thunderdome.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Akima on 22 Dec 2012, 13:27 ---this explanation is probably bogus
--- End quote ---
Not least, the version of the rhyme with those "symptoms" in it was first recorded in 1881 - rather a long way from the supposed inspiration.
A similar rhyme recorded in New Bedford, Massachusetts, about 1790, runs: Ring a ring a rosie / A bottle full of posie / All the girls in our town / Ring for little Josie. Compare also a Yorkshire rhyme of 1882: Here we go round by ring, by ring / As ladies do in Yorkshire / A curtsey here, a curtsey there / A curtsey to the ground, sir.
The modern version was recorded in 1883 with the line: A-tisha! a-tisha!, and in 1915 with the line: A-sha! A-sha!, which show the development towards "Ashes, Ashes" quite nicely.
A bad taste parody of 1949 runs: Ring-a-ring-o'-geranium / A pocket full of uranium / Hiro, shima / All fall down.
Redball:
I usually trust Snopes. But here it claims it's unlikely the verse is connected to the plague: http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp
Near Lurker:
"Usually... but"? Everywhere I've ever looked has that rumor as bullshit.
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