Good question -- I haven't had any luck. The slang meaning that gets the obscenities flowing turns out to be pretty old (1600s -- I checked with a historical dictionary). So it looks like innocent and offensive versions must have been around at the same time. What my student is finding is that children really do have a lore and a culture entirely separate from adults, stuff that they teach to each other, that has meaning and consistency, and is often the kind of thing adults would put a stop to if they knew about it. I wonder how it is we forget what we *really* thought and talked about when we were kids? It *is* living oral tradition. The stuff spreads across the country by kid-telegraph at amazing speed. Nobody yet has figured out how the six notes of "nanny nanny boo boo" spread around the world the way they did (and what *are* the notes? Like I said, I'm musical as a brick).

Adam

BTW, feeding that title into your browser pulls up some really putrid stuff.