Lyr Add: 'There was a little girl who had a ...'

Subject: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Viracocha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:02 PM

There was a little girl
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle
Of her for'ed

When she was good
She was very very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid

She stood on her head
On her truckle-bed
With no one by her to hinder

She screamed and she squauled [?]
She yelled and she bawled
And banged her heels against the winder.


[This is how I remember it from my "100 Nursery Rhymes" video, but I couldn't find the lyrics like this anywhere through mudcat or even google. Have a feeling my computer may be at fault, there - sorry, if that's the case!]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: HouseCat
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:07 PM

First verse is the same in the one I know and then:

One day she wents upstairs,
When her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen were occupied with meals.
She stood upon her head in her little trundle-bed,
And then began hooraying with her heels.

Her mother heard the noise
And she tough it was the boys,
A-playing at a combet in the attic,
But when she climbed the stair,
She found Jemima there,
And she took her and did spank her most emphatic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: HouseCat
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:09 PM

Wow, I had lots of typo's, sorry!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Viracocha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:11 PM

Does each verse use the same tune? The one I know changed at the end (hence why the scanning is so completely different).

It's interesting that she's called 'Jemima' - when I was looking online, there was one site that said:

"This actually isn't a nursery rhyme. It is a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The line "she was very, very good" should actually be "she was very good indeed". Longfellow's second son Ernest says of this poem: "It was while walking up and down with his second daughter, then a baby in his arms, that my father composed and sang to her the well-known lines .... Many people think this a Mother Goose rhyme, but this is the true version and history"

But I'm not sure that's from a reliable source...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Viracocha
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:13 PM

(I only saw one typo, don't worry.)

And the link didn't work. Sorry, here's the URL:

www.rhymes.org.uk/a116-there-was-a-little-girl.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: HouseCat
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:32 PM

I learned this as a poem, rather than a song, so I'm not familiar with a tune. I do think the Longfellow reference is correct. I had to learn this as a recitation piece in 2nd grade, so it's stuck forever in my head!

Subject: ADD: There was a little girl (H.W. Longfellow)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:48 PM

Blame H. W. Longfellow for this one. He wrote it.

THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL
(H.W. Longfellow)

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

One day she went upstairs,
When her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen were occupied with meals
And she stood upon her head
In her little trundle-bed,
And then began hooraying with her heels.

Her mother heard the noise,
And she thought it was the boys
A-playing at a combat in the attic;
But when she climbed the stair,
And found Jemima there,
She took and she did spank her most emphatic.

A very good collection of these rhymes is:
Carolyn Wells, Collector, 1902, "A Nonsense Anthology," Charles Scribner's Sons, NY.
I believe there are several reprints of this fine little book.

Subject: Origins: There was a little girl
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 08:04 PM

Apparently this little rhyme made its way into public discourse before the author's name was generally known.

Found with Google Book Search: from The Home Life of Henry W. Longfellow: Reminiscences of Many Visits at Cambridge and Nahant ... by Blanche Roosevelt Tucker-Macchetta, 1882, page 90:

Up to the present time I had taken but little share in the conversation. A momentary lull gave me a chance to speak, and not interrupt.

"Yes," said I, deliberately, when all had finished, "there is no accounting for the rubbish that will in spite of judicious weeding find its way to publicity; the authors are never known, and perhaps it is as well. I can at present only call to mind one instance, under the head of poetry, which runs as follows: or" — I stopped with an inquiring look around, and half hesitatingly ventured to retract my implied idea of repeating it. In vain—an earnest "Pray go on," "continue," in which the professor's voice was uppermost most in the chorus, positively insisted on hearing the aforesaid "rubbish;" clearing my throat, I began

"There was a little durl,
And she had a little curl
That hung in the middle of her forehead,
When she was dood,
She was very dood indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid,"

I looked up triumphantly as the last line rang out. Depict, imagine, my confusion when the poet raised his eyes, and with a faint smile, said: "Why! those are my words, are they not, Annie," turning to his youngest daughter, who at that moment was gracefully coming through the low window opening out on the terrace, at the same time repeating the identical rhythm that but a moment before I had signalized as a sample of "rubbish." Miss Annie looked up laughingly, and said in her cheery voice, "Why, of course, papa, that comes in your nursery collection. Don't you remember when Edith was a little girl and didn't want to have her hair curled, you took her up in your arms, and shaking your finger at her, commenced, 'There was a little girl,'" etc., etc.

The poet laughed, they all laughed, and I, in spite of my discomfiture, joined in time general merriment….

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 08:21 PM

There was a little girl , who had a little curl ,
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good , she was Ver Very good
But when she was bad , she was SUPERB !!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 10:56 PM

"horrid" is of course pronounced "hoar-head" to rhyme with "forehead" by all rhyming Americans!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 12:16 AM

??
Nonsense!
The 'h' often silent in speech.
'fär-ed is the preferred pronunciation in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth edition. The 'e' should be the schwa symbol.

'hor-ed and 'här-ed, both accepted in the same Dictionary. The 'e' is reversed in the guide to pronunciation, thus the neutral (unstressed) vowel called schwa. The o in 'hor- has a dot above it; in the pronunciation guide, this means that the 'o' is pronounced as in saw, all, gnaw.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Viracocha
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 08:16 AM

I got (both from my mother, with her Wimbledon accent, and my nursery-rhyme video, with its mock-bbc accent):

...Right in the middle
Of her "FORRID"

I suppose Americans would phoneticise [sp?] it as 'far-ed' - for me, 'forr' rhymes with the first part of lorry.

So it therefore rhymes quite easily with 'horrid'.

But then, different accents, different things rhyme... And it's already been proved thet my version's wrong anyway, even having a different tune (how THAT happened when it was written relatively recently, I don't know). So I may just have the pronounciation wrong, too.

I have never heard anyone else refer to a forehead as a forrid - anyone know if it was a common word back then (or even now, somewhere), or if Mr. Longfellow just 'twisted' them to fit the rhyme?

-Viracocha
-Viracocha

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: HouseCat
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 12:23 PM

My mother, who was an Alabamian with English parents, pronounced it "farrid".

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 03:48 PM

Viracocha, I only put the 'most preferred' forehead pronunciation- Also accepted in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary are 'for-ed (o as in bone), for-hed (o with dot, thus as in saw).

Regionally, there are others used, so in other words, it don't make no nevermind. The rhyme works in more that one way.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 11:06 PM

Wow! I never knew there were words beyond Horrid! Love the "most emphatic" version! Mudcat rules!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Rowan
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 11:13 PM

"I never knew there were words beyond Horrid!"

Like atrocious?

Sorry Mrrzy, I actually DO know what you intended, and I'd not come across them either. But, in Oz, "forehead" universally rhymes (except for those from east of the pacific and north of the equator) with "horrid".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 11:13 PM

From Judy[*], or the London Serio-Comic Journal, Volume 10, Feb. 7, 1872:


A DOMESTIC INCIDENT
In the Life of a Young Lady, aged Two.

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl
  Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
  But when she was bad, she was horrid!

She went upstairs,
While her parents, unawares,
  In the kitchen were occupied at meals;
And she stood upon her head,
On her little truckle bed,
  And there began hooraying with her heels!

Her mother heard the noise,
And thought it was the boys
  A playin' in the back attic;
So up she creep'd.
Then in she peep'd,
  Then slapped her most emphatic.


[* A competitor to Punch, apparently.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 07:04 AM

I love this thread; like others, didn't know it beyond the second verse, but I learnt it from my mother when I was very small.
Another standard in my family was 'The Little Girl Who Would Never Say Please'. Her rude table manners led her into trouble!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There was a little girl
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 03:22 PM

Okay, GUEST, drop the other shoe! How does 'The Little Girl Who Would Never Say Please' go? Inquiring minds want to know!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T SAY PLEASE
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 03:43 PM

Is this the one you learned as a child, Guest?

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T SAY PLEASE
(By MSP)

There was once a small child who would never say please,
I believe, if you even went down on your knees.
But, her arms on the table, would sit at her ease,
And call out to her mother in words such as these :
"I want some potatoes!" "Give me some peas!"
"Hand me the butter!" "Cut me some cheese!"
So the fairies, this very rude daughter to tease,
Once blew her away in a powerful breeze,
Over the mountains, and over the seas,
To a valley where never a dinner she sees,
But down with the ants, the wasps, and the bees,
In the woods she must live till she learns to say please.


from St. Nicholas Magazine, Volume III (1874-1875)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'There was a little girl who had a ...'
From: GUEST,harriett thompson
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 11:07 AM

her mother heard the noise and thought it was the boys playing in the empty attic
She rushed upstairs caught her unawares and spanked her most emphatic