The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #170202   Message #4174378
Posted By: and e
12-Jun-23 - 07:08 AM
Thread Name: Origins: How old is The Little Fly ?
Subject: RE: Origins: How old is The Little Fly ?
Years ago, as a child, I heard a rhyme, more forceful
than elgant, yet pointg to a moral by its very
force. Somewhat expurgated for the sake of delicate
ears, it went thus:
The fly flew into the grocery store,
A place he had often been before.
He speckd on the sugar,
He specked on the ham.
He didn't give a damn for the gorceryman.


May 1926, "Man and His Ills", California and Western Medicine, pg 670, vol XXIV, No. 5.

See online: https://www.google.com/books/edition/California_and_Western_Medicine/jSTIU3ab184C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22fly+flew%22+%22into+the+grocery+store%22&pg=PA670&printsec=frontcover

So if this article is by a doctor in his 30s... this would place the song to c1900.