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The demonetisation of nursey rhymes: political correctness gone mad?
I have a book of nursery rhymes at home, actually I have several, but this one in question is by the Children's Television Workshop, the people who make sesame street, so all the illustrations are with sesame street characters.
Anyhoo, there are two nursery rhymes in there where references to money have been expunged. You're probably familiar with:
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun
Pop! goes the weasel.
A penny for a spool of thread
A penny for a needle
That's the way the money goes
Pop! goes the weasel.
And various other verses, this book only includes the above two, BUT it changes the second:
A penny for a spool of thread
A penny for a needle
That's the way we sing the song
Pop! goes the weasel.
And then - and this is one of my favourites so it really annoys me:
Sing a song of sixpence
A pocketful of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing
"Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king!"
The king was in his counting house, counting out his money
The queen was in her parlour, eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes
When along came a blackbird and pecked at her nose!
So here they change the first line of the second verse:
The king was on his throne, patting his pet bunny
It's a fucking outrage. Interestingly they keep references to denominations of money, but just remove references to money as a more general concept. I suppose sing a song of six bunnies doesn't really work.
I dunno, maybe I should let it go, but it really really annoys me.