Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-24993958-20150801001020/@comment-4010415-20150804034453

I learned in school that, in the European outbreak, people accidentally figured out that they could slow the spread by burning the bodies after they started running out of room in the cemeteries, and that's what the "ashes, ashes" part of Ring Around the Rosie is talking about.

Y'know.

Ring around the rosie - The "rosie" is a rosary, with someone praying on every single bead, thus making a "ring" around the rosary.

Pockets full of posies - A lot of people ended up carrying handkerchiefs full of flower petals (posies are a type of flower) to press to their face when they passed by rotting corpses.

Ashes, ashes - The burning of the corpses.

We all fall down - We all die.