Lyrics & Knowledge Personal Pages Record Shop Auction Links Radio & Media Kids Membership Help
The Mudcat Cafesj

Post to this Thread - Printer Friendly - Home
Page: [1] [2]


Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man

DigiTrad:
DIRTY OLD MAN
THIS OLD MAN


Related thread:
(origins) Origins: This Old Man (29)


Joe Offer 24 Oct 03 - 03:50 AM
CRANKY YANKEE 24 Oct 03 - 02:33 AM
Malcolm Douglas 23 Oct 03 - 07:32 PM
greg stephens 23 Oct 03 - 06:50 PM
Blowzabella 23 Oct 03 - 06:26 PM
katlaughing 23 Oct 03 - 06:02 PM
Malcolm Douglas 23 Oct 03 - 10:08 AM
Malcolm Douglas 23 Oct 03 - 09:04 AM
Pied Piper 23 Oct 03 - 07:51 AM
GUEST,banjoman 23 Oct 03 - 06:45 AM
greg stephens 23 Oct 03 - 06:39 AM
GUEST,JOHN OF ELSIE`S BAND 23 Oct 03 - 06:34 AM
GUEST,Davetnova 23 Oct 03 - 03:17 AM
mouldy 23 Oct 03 - 03:01 AM
Blowzabella 22 Oct 03 - 09:02 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 22 Oct 03 - 08:23 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 07:27 PM
Malcolm Douglas 22 Oct 03 - 07:00 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 05:41 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 22 Oct 03 - 05:35 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 04:13 PM
Blowzabella 22 Oct 03 - 04:12 PM
greg stephens 22 Oct 03 - 04:07 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 04:04 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 03:57 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 22 Oct 03 - 03:53 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 22 Oct 03 - 03:45 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 22 Oct 03 - 03:26 PM
GUEST,Peter from Essex 22 Oct 03 - 03:23 PM
greg stephens 22 Oct 03 - 03:17 PM
katlaughing 22 Oct 03 - 03:07 PM
Share Thread
more
Lyrics & Knowledge Search [Advanced]
DT  Forum Child
Sort (Forum) by:relevance date
DT Lyrics:













Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 03:50 AM

Gees, you guys are vicious. In the other thread, I said, "I learned it with what might be an anti-Irish "paddywhack" (vice "potterack"). When we were kids, we thought it meant hitting an Irishman with a stick, not that we were bothered by that. I thought I worded my conjecture as noncomittally as I could, but Kat and I sure got jumped on. Since "Paddy" is American slang for Irishman, I think it's quite possible that some people changed it to "patty" so as not to offend - even though the original intent was most probably not an ethnic slur.

Please note that neither kat nor I condemned the song as an ethnic slur. We merely threw out the question. Kat and I are tough enough to take it, but I wonder if the ferocity of the response might tend to stifle honest inquiries or comments. Like it or not, fifty years ago, some kids in Detroit thought "paddywhack" meant hitting an Irishman. Since this is a kids' song, I think that's a worthwhile observation.

-Joe Offer-

P.S. I can't find anything in Opie - Singing Game, Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Games with Things. Now Paddy and I will go cry in our beer.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 02:33 AM

WITH A KNICK KNACK PADDY WHACK
KICK HIM WITH YOUR SHOE
THAT OLD DOG JUST PISSED ON YOU


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 07:32 PM

That's what I'm hoping for; but it isn't likely to be in any source immediately available to me, I think. Meanwhile it can only be a tentative identification. I'm not assuming that it must be the song we know, but it certainly does suggest that we now have a potentially larger time-frame to look at, and that my earlier guess at an American source for this particular form is likely to have been wrong. That was partly based on the fact that the two American examples listed by Roud both begin This old man; but so, on the other hand, does the unpublished Sharp set.

The set in Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, incidentally, also has "padlock" rather than "paddywhack", but that doesn't prove anything in itself. The tune is rhythmically closer to the form we are used to, but whether it's melodically related I couldn't say.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:50 PM

Malcolm Douglas: you assume, and I think I do, that AG Gilchrist's reference to "This old man came rolling home" must be to the song we know now. But can we be absolutely sure of that, if we havent got an English version actually written or recorded. If it was familiar to Gilchrist as a first world war route march song, shouldnt there be a written version knocking around to confirm this, and that doesnnt seem to have shown up yet.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Blowzabella
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:26 PM

Malcolm - you really know how to write a post - it is clear, well thought out, interesting, intriguing, informing - academic yet in no way condescending- there must be a prize due for this surely.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:02 PM

This is really interesting. Who knew!? Thanks all!


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: Lyr Add: JACK JINTLE (Manchester 1870s)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 10:08 AM

I missed a comment made by Gilchrist which would put the date of This Old Man as sung today in the UK back at any rate to the First World War period, so we now have at least anecdotal evidence, though not yet details (see below). My earlier comments should be revised in the light of that; an American import or re-import now seems much less likely. Here is Jack Jintle, as printed in The Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society:



JACK JINTLE

(From Elizabeth Piercy, Manchester, 1870s. Noted by Anne G. Gilchrist)

My name is Jack Jintle, the eldest but one,
And I can play nick-nack upon my own thumb.
With my nick-nack and pad-lock and sing a fine song,
And all the fine ladies come dancing along.


My name is Jack Jintle, the eldest but two,
And I can play nick-nack upon my own shoe.
With my nick-nack, etc.

(As before, substituting "three" and "knee", "four" and "floor").


X:1
T:Jack Jintle
T:(An old Action Song)
S:Elizabeth Piercy, Manchester, 1870s. Noted by Anne G. Gilchrist.
B:Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, III (2) 1937 124-5.
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
M:6/8
K:D
A|D F A D F A|D F A d2 B|
w:My name is Jack Jin-tle, the eld-est but one, And
A F F F E D|C E E E2||
w:I can play nick-nack up-on my own thumb.
"Refrain"F/ E/|D F A D F A|D F A d2 G|
w:With my nick-nack and pad-lock and sing a fine song, And
F E F E A G|F D D D2|]
w:all the fine la-dies come danc-ing a-long.


Miss Gilchrist added:

"The rest is forgotten, but the numbers probably went up to ten. In the first verse the singer, suiting the action to the word, rapped with her knuckle on her thumb; in the second rapped on the sole of her shoe; in the third on her knee, and so on. Elizabeth Piercy was our Welsh nursemaid and illiterate when she came to us at the age of seventeen. She was a good singer, but one could make no sense of some of her scraps of English songs, though she sang well in Welsh and taught me to sing songs in that language.

"This old action-song, belonging to the day before such things were introduced into the school curriculum, is here printed in the hope that it may elicit other variants which may help to elucidate its origin. It belongs to the cumulative class of which This old man came rolling home is a war-time route march specimen. The only other version I have seen of Jack Jintle is set to the tune of the Italian Montferina - a dance-tune much used for nursery-songs and games since it came to England in 1810. Mr. Kidson's version is a stick-dance, but arrangd as such by himself - many of his games being adaptations. The 'nick-nack' may perhaps provide a clue. In the ballad of Burd Isabel and Earl Patrick occurs the verse:

"The Knichts they knack their white fingers,
The ladies sat and sang,
'Twas a' to cheer bonnie Burd Bell,
She was far sunk in pain.

"This suggests some finger-trick more than mere snapping. 'Knackers' is an old name for castanets or wooden 'bones'. Strutt quotes under Fool's Dance an allusion (1649) to a person dancing the Spanish morisco with 'knackers' at his fingers.

"A variant of the same tune was known in our nursery days to a child song As Tommy was walking one fine summer day."

-Anne Geddes Gilchrist, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, III (2) 1937 124-5.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 09:04 AM

No evidence as yet of the song prior to c.1870 (unless the Sharp MS or the Moffat/Kidson book have further information); it may well be older, but we don't know that. No evidence either, so far, to connect it either to sailors or to Liverpool, or that the term "paddywhack" occurs in English versions prior to Seeger. Gilchrist makes the same connection with bones or castanets (both often called "knackers") as has "Davetnova".

Anne Gilchrist's nursemaid was from Wales, but could have learned the song either there or in Lancashire; not from a printed source, though, as she didn't learn to read until later. The tune is not the same as that popular now. The tune given by Kidson is, according to Gilchrist, "the Italian Montferina - a dance-tune much used for nursery-songs and games since it came to England in 1810." I don't have any information on that at present.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Pied Piper
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 07:51 AM

I played at a Ceilidh for a Scottish couple in Cheshire the other week, and while I was tuning up my Pipes one of the kids asked me to play This Old Man. I obliged, the kids really loved it and I re-discovered what a great dance tune it is.
I would imagine that the tune is an 18th century Dance tune like so many other children's rhymes, but does any body know of a B part, or a related tune.
I think we take a lot of the children's tunes for granted, and don't play them in other contexts. These tunes must have been very popular in the general population to have survived this well and are the fundamental icons on which our understanding of the Trad dance form is based.
Over Hills And Fare Away is a great tune that I play regularly and I got the musical gist from John John The Pipers Son as a Kid myself.

TTFN
PP


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: GUEST,banjoman
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:45 AM

I always thought this song had its origins in Liverpool - hence the "Paddy" a name given to both imigree Irishmen or Catholics by the Orange Lodge - known as "Proddy Dogs"
The term "Wack" is a very old term for a friend or aquaintance in the Liverpool vernacular "Or right there wack" is still a local greeting.
I may be wrong (probably am in light of the distinguished personnages who have replied before me) buts its a good thread topic anyway.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:39 AM

Never mind the anti-Irish sentiments, there seems to me a distinct air of paeodophilia or violent child abuse about the song. Particularly as the "drum" is a euphemism for something that rhymes with it.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: GUEST,JOHN OF ELSIE`S BAND
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 06:34 AM

The song
    "This old man, he played one"
    "He played nick nack on my drum"
    "With a nick nack, paddy whack, give a dog a bone"
    "This old man goes rolling home"
continuing through ten verses until the old man "played ten" on some part of the singer`s anatomy or possession has certainly been sung by the folks, especially children, in Britain ever since Adam was a boy.

Also an interesting question. Why do we say someone is in a "paddy" when they are not in the best of tempers?


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: GUEST,Davetnova
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 03:17 AM

I have heard that it originated as a Sailors busking song. Begging was illegal but by playing the bones , or knick knacks, you became an entertainer. This is why the begging reference - give the dog a bone.
Paddy and wack are both terms akin to mate or friend.
Or thats the internet rumour I've heard.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: mouldy
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 03:01 AM

Paddywhack, as far as I know, refers to the spinal cord (the springy white bit) down the middle of a cooked back-bone. I had never heard of it until my husband pointed it out in a piece of stewed lamb neck. Thus it fits nicely to the "give a dog a bone". I'm also sure I have seen it used as a name for a dog treat somewhere.

As to the rest, it more than likely is a nonsense rhyme that can be used to teach counting to children.

Andrea


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Blowzabella
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 09:02 PM

The reference to Anne Gilchrist brings it to Lancashire as she was a member of the Gilchrist family of Sunderland near lancaster (where I was leading my guided walk tody)


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 08:23 PM

Interesting. If the 1911 version is similar and can be dug out of MS. then we have a "no later than" date to shoot at. If these pre-Seeger versions are of this song, then it could well be from the British Isles.
Public knowledge of this rhyme blossomed with the 1858 movie.

It does not occur in Kane ed. Fouke, "Songs and Sayings of an Ulster Clildhood."


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 07:27 PM

I said I was JUST CURIOUS, NOT implying anything. Sheesh!

Thanks for the further info.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 07:00 PM

Not in Opie, so far as I can see; but their index is not constucted on the most helpful of lines.

This is number 3550 in the Roud Folk Song Index. At present, only 7 examples are listed; 3 from England (1911, 1962, 1973), 2 from the USA (n.d. and pre-1948), 2 from Canada (1959, 1962). The earliest example there was noted by Cecil Sharp and a Mrs Stanton from children at East Dereham in Norfolk (September 1911); so far as I know, it has not been published. Not yet listed in Roud is Jack Jintle, learned by Anne Gilchrist from her childhood nursemaid, Elizabeth Piercy, in the 1870s (Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society,III (2) 1937 124-5), or the version in Kidson and Moffat's Eighty Singing-Games.

There are various titles: Jack Jingle, Old Joe Padlock, Old Joe Nigalock, Old Tommy Kendall... "Paddy Whack", though known as a dance-tune title since the 18th century, doesn't appear in the English versions I've seen (haven't seen the Sharp or Kidson sets) and likely derives in this context from the American set published by Seeger and popularised during the second half of the 20th century through numerous children's song books and commercial recordings.

To imagine some "anti-Irish" connotation is about as likely as another bizarre suggestion (made at the Mudcat, of course) that Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor might be racist because it featured a Brown Girl.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 05:41 PM

Here's the part I didn't tell ya, Q....I learned it from a leprechuan! A transplant he was, plunked right down in the middle of ol' Wyoming; one of the Remittance Men, ya know...younger bro, couldn't inherit? 'Course he shucked that green outfit; changed into tiny boots, chaps, jeans, the whole bit...took up with the rodeo and rolled out the barrel for the bulls. In between bareback ridin' and steer-wrestlin' he'd provide musical entertainment along with Tall Tales. He came to visit our Girl Scout troop one time and that's when he told us the plight of his long-suffering peoples and taught us the PC version!!

katIswearit'strue!


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 05:35 PM

Yeah, Greg, Kat has that calumny in our minds now, it was already mentioned in that other thread (9306), and Irish (part, anyway) like me are all going to take umbrage. From now on we all sing Patty- until the gals and dolls ---


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 04:13 PM

That's certainly not my intent, greg. I know that kids nowadays, nor in my children's day or my own, had anything such thing in mind, either. I just wondered if there was a connection. I figure this lot is so good on origins, someone would know. Thanks, anyway.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: Blowzabella
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 04:12 PM

I know this isn't exactly of any intrinsic value as a source, but I seem to recall Daniel Hagman (John Tams) singing it in an episode of 'Sharpe', set in the Peninsula Wars, in the early years of the C19th. I know that he was not just engaged as an actor but was also heavily involved with the music for the series and I would be surprised (and a bit disappointed) if it was featured without evidence of some sort.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 04:07 PM

I would think that "Nick nack paddy whack" is like "Davy Davy Nick Nack", just a very successful marrying of nonsense syllables to a memorable bit of tune. Whether in the dim and distant past there may have been some unfortunate Paddies getting whacked in an early version I couldnt say, but I doubt if that is in the minds of many of the children who delight in singing it. But it could become that way, if someone uses the internet to start a legend that that is what the song is about, and then it will become a de facto anti-Irish song. Such things gave happened.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knick Knack Patt/ddy Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 04:04 PM

Oh, yeah, and just who is this old man?


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:57 PM

I had always heard it "paddy," too, come to think of it. Sorry, fellahs.:-) Some Girl Scout version, indeed!**BG**

I was wondering if the "paddy whack" was in anyway related to prejudice against the Irish? The rest of the info is really interesting, too, thanks a bunch!

kat


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:53 PM

In thread 9306, Bruce O. says he doesn't know of the song in any British Isles material.
Not found so far before the 1950s in American sources but presumed to be American.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:45 PM

There are several copyrighted arrangements. One of these is "The Childrens Marching Song (Nick Nack Paddy Whack) adapted and arranged by Malcolm Arnold, 1958. For the movie, "Inn of the Sixth Happiness"
(In Levy sheet music, not shown for copyright reasons).
Pete Seeger recorded it in 1953.

Haven't found anything old yet. Supposed to be American, says the Trad Ballad Index.
Anyone have Opie? if it is older, it may show up there.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:26 PM

Never heard patty- always paddy. You must have some girl scout version.

Lots of paddy versions, here's one from a 100% American site: Old Man

Origin of song? Durned if I know but you have made me curious. Will have to look.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:23 PM

I'm with Greg on this. I'm sure they sung "Paddy" in Inn of the Sixth Happiness

Its a fairly standard children's counting song.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:17 PM

Perhaps it is patty in America and paddy in England? Paddy is what i was brought up with, anway.(in England)


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: Origins: Knck Knack Patty Whack -This Old Man
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 03:07 PM

I am curious as to the phrase knick knack patty whack in the child's tune This Old Man. I did a search and only came up with one reference in the threads: joke with a mondegreen.

Anyway, would like to hear what anyone might know of it and also if "patty" might've originally been "paddy?" For that matter, anything anyone might know about the whole song would be welcome, too.:-)

Thanks,

kat


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate
  Share Thread:
More...


This Thread Is Closed.


Mudcat time: 17 May 1:24 AM EDT

[ Home ]

All original material is copyright © 2022 by the Mudcat Café Music Foundation. All photos, music, images, etc. are copyright © by their rightful owners. Every effort is taken to attribute appropriate copyright to images, content, music, etc. We are not a copyright resource.