I'm sure we've all uttered the phrase Oly Oly Oxen free while playing hide and seek during our youth. It is often yelled so everyone will come out of their hiding places.
Well after using it as my subject last time I looked up the origin.
I'm beginning to think that every rhyme intended for children has dark origins.
Ring Around the Rosie=The Black Plague
London Bridges=Something morbid with locking kids up
Oly Oly Oxen Free= Etymologists suspect it is a childish corruption of the German "Alle, alle auch sind frei!", (literally, "Everyone, everyone also is free!"), which is purported to have been a cruel joke often played upon Holocaust victims by their jailers. At any particular time, a prisoner might be released, immediately upon which the phrase would be shouted. Any other prisoners who also left would be killed further down the road by Nazi soldiers.
Well after using it as my subject last time I looked up the origin.
I'm beginning to think that every rhyme intended for children has dark origins.
Ring Around the Rosie=The Black Plague
London Bridges=Something morbid with locking kids up
Oly Oly Oxen Free= Etymologists suspect it is a childish corruption of the German "Alle, alle auch sind frei!", (literally, "Everyone, everyone also is free!"), which is purported to have been a cruel joke often played upon Holocaust victims by their jailers. At any particular time, a prisoner might be released, immediately upon which the phrase would be shouted. Any other prisoners who also left would be killed further down the road by Nazi soldiers.
4 comments:
wow...that make me sad...but every story i hear about nazis and jews makes me sad...
Wow. Just wow. I think most sayings that we use hap-hazzardly are not quite what we take them for.
Take for instance, this classic line:
"Inconceivable!!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Okay, maybe that isn't close at all to the point you were trying to make. But, as Katy said, I watch too many movies.
P.s. - Nubbins. How is the old bean?
Yes, that is craziness! Why and were do people come up with some of these things.
And don't forget "Rock-a-bye Baby" Now that one is disturbing!
And don't forget the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb"
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