We did NOT "all learn this the same way"...*grin*


*I* heard it from Pete Seeger, as I said above, about 1961-62, with the line about "7 sailing ships..."

I still wonder if he wrote part of it..here is another version with 'suggestions' of the version I heard.

"A good fat hen.

Two ducks and a good fat hen.

Three plump partridges, two ducks and a good fat hen.

Four squawking wild geese, three plump partridges, etc.

Five hundred Limerick oysters.

Six pairs of Don Alfonso's tweezers.

Seven hundred rank and file Macedonian horsemen drawn up in line of battle.

Eight cages of heliogabalus sparrow kites.

Nine sympathetical, epithetical, categorical propositions.

Ten tentapherical tubes.

Eleven flat bottom fly boats sailing between Madagascar and Mount Palermo.

Twelve European dancing masters, sent to teach the Egyptian mummies how to dance, against Hercules' wedding day. "