Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-24534644-20170630004409/@comment-25936766-20170702162313

So, I did a bit of research....Ring Around the Rosie actually has nothing to do with the Black Death, or any plague whatsoever.

Everything about it having any sort of connection to plagues or diseases is just an urban legend born from baseless, overly-literal interpretation of cherry-picked words combined with wild assumptions of non-existent symbolism all to give the impression that it talks about the plague.

-"A rosy rash was a symptom of the plague"

-"Sneezing, ever-present in diseases, was a "final fatal symptom" of the plague along with coughing"

-"Posies of herbs ere carried for protection and to ward of the smell of the plague"

-"All falling down was exactly what happened".

-"Ashes! Ashes! Referring to the cremations of bodies, the blackening of people's skins, the burning of their houses, etc...".

However....

-That interpretation is from the mid-XX century, and by then the song had been around for more than 100 years. Before WW2 no such interpretation existed.

-Rosie is taken from French. It's literally the french word for Rose Trees.

-The whole "Ashes!" bit comes from the Murican version (because they have that pathological need to make everything "manlier"), and it's not present in the British version (where it's "A-tishoo!") or the other versions (some of which have completely different sentences in their stead).

-The symptoms do not especially fit the Black Death nor the Great Plague (Coughs and Sneezes are everywhere, for starters), except tissue Necrosis (for the Black Death), but remember, the "Ashes!" bit is from Colonial America, it's not in the original version.

-And most importantly....."We all fall down" did not mean literally falling down. It meant doing a curtsy or a similar movement.

So............RAY, YOU LIED TO US!! You heartless, soulless dastard!

--

I haven't fully decided yet, but I most likely may go with "The Lion and the Unicorn". Or maybe "The Muffin Man", it has a catchy tune.

Or as a last resort, "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue" (Which would be very cheap, But it fits the theme too).