The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #94034   Message #1929046
Posted By: Azizi
07-Jan-07 - 08:20 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky
Subject: RE: Origins: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky
The comment that I wrote on 23 Nov 06 - 08:40 PM also applies for the example posted by GUEST,apple - PM on 06 Jan 07 - 06:41 PM.

In other words, I have considerable doubts as to whether this example really comes from a child or a teenager.

The pattern of combining separate rhymes does ring true, but imo, these lines don't seem authentic to me-"authentic" meaning being composed or recited by children:

"where the bullfrogs hump
from bank to banky
singing heep hopp heep hop hump...
-snip-

[And]

"darker than the underwear micheal jackson pulls off of me" .

Fwiw {and I recognize that it's not worth much}, I've not seen the alliteration of "heep, hopp heep hop hump" before in examples of Hanky Panky rhymes. But what makes the use of "hump" suspect for me is the sexual slang meaning of the word "hump"... This doesn't feel authentic to me...again for what it's worth...

I have my doubts about the authenticity of the michael jackson pulling off underwear line partly because it doesn't fit with the line in an earlier verse that "Michael Jackson is a fag" and also because it doesn't fit with the sense I have that in playground rhymes children don't talk bad about themselves or draw [what they would preceive is] negative sexual attention to themselves.

Now if the line had said "darker than the underwear Michael Jackson pulled off of you" that line would have seemed to me to be much more authentic. But then "you" wouldn't have rhymed with "sea".

It may be that I'm being much too analytical and "guest apple"'s Hanky Panky example may indeed be from a child.

But I doubt it.

Not that it matters a hill of beans what I doubt, but still...