There Was An Old Woman Who Lost Her Whip...

Nursery rhymes are songs and verses for children. If you love playing with words you will enjoy Mother Goose nursery rhymes, but you may also be surprised at how violent some of the rhymes are. For example, this nursery rhyme about an old woman who lived in a shoe ends with a violent whipping: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children, she didn't know what to do; She gave them some broth without any bread, She whipped them all soundly, and put them to bed.

Modern editors tend to bowdlerize the nursery rhymes to make them suitable for modern sensibilities. Here, for example, is a modern version:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread,
She kissed them all gently and sent them to bed.

Vocabulary Notes

bowdlerize - to cut rude or unsuitable words from a text. Origin: Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), English editor of an edition of Shakespeare with all the rude words cut out.

David Hurley
Succeed-In-English.com