It occurs to me that there is at least one VERY popular African American rhyme which uses a form of provanity avoidance in its third verse.

"Tweedleelee" {or some approximation of that name}is a parody of Michael Jackson's version of "Rockin Robin". I have found very similar versions of this rhyme among African Americans in Pittsburgh area; Erie, PA; Philadelphia,PA; Cleveland, Ohio; Washington D.C; Crawford, Georgia. I also have a similar version from a Latino woman from New York City, and an woman of Filipino descent from Richmond, Virginia. Given this list, I would suspect that this rhyme is found elsewhere in USA, and maybe elsewhere.

Here's one version of "Tweedleelee" that I collected from girls & boys ages 5-14 years in various Pittsburgh, Penn. communities 1998-2005:

Tweedleelee
and a bumble bee
Tweedleelee
Popsicle, popsicle
Your butt stinks

He rocks in the tree top
all day long
huffin and ah puffin
and ah singin his song.
All the little birds on Jay Bird street
Loves to hear the bird go
TWEET TWEET TWEET

Rockin Robin
Tweet Tweetdalee
Rockin Robin
Tweet Tweetdalee

Mama's in the kitchen
cookin rice.
Daddy's outside
shootin dice
Brother's in jail
raisin bail
Sister's on the corner
Sellin FRUIT COCKTAIL (girls rhythmically touch their hips down to their upper legs or emphatically rock their hips in time with the beat).

I went downtown
To get ah stick of butter.
I saw James Brown
Layin in the gutter.
I saw an piece of glass
Stickin in his butt
I never saw a Black man
run so fast

-snip-

Note in that third verse that the word "ass" would be a perfect rhyme for the word "glass". However, I have never heard the word "ass" used in this rhyme {when it has been recited by children & youth, or when it has been recited by adults who remembered it from their childhood and teen years}. On some occassions, some children confessed that this rhyme had a "dirty verse" but agreed to recite the whole thing anyway. On those occassions, they still didn't use the word "ass".

On one occassion three months ago, as part of an after-school program that I conduct on children's rhymes, I asked a group of girls and boys if they knew "Tweedleelee". All of them did and began reciting it {some girls also began doing a handclap routine while reciting the words}. But Breonda, a 9 year old girl, interrupted the recitation, and said "Remember we're supposed to say:

I took a piece a piece a glass stuck it in the butter
I never saw a stick of butter run so fast"

-snip-

I asked Breonda where she had gotten those words from. She replied that she had made them up. I asked her why and she said she had done so because the other words were "bad". At least on that occassion- because of the force of Breonda's personality {even though she was younger than some of the other children}-the rest of the children recited the words as Breonda had given them.

And a good time was had by all.

****

Azizi Powell