Trimming the Fat from Little Bo Peep

HiDesertHal

HiDesertHal

Senior Member
Location
Southern California's High Mojave Desert
The nursery rhyme "Little Bo Peep" contains redundancies and unnecessary words and should be trimmed down.

The original goes:

"Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn't know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they'll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them."

Now if Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep, it would be a redundancy to say: "And doesn't know where to find them." wouldn't it?

"And doesn't know where to find them" is just the same as saying "Has lost her sheep", right?

"Leave them alone" is totally unnecessary as well, since they're lost and have no choice but being left alone!

"Wagging their tails behind them" is also unnecessary...do they have an alternate choice of wagging their tails in front of them, or to the side?

Since we've streamlined "Little Bo Peep", the rhyme will now read:

"Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep.
They'll come home wagging their tails."

How about streamlining some other nursery rhymes?

HDH
 
Old King Cole

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh there's none so rare, as can compare,
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.


Merry old King Cole called for his pipe, bowl, and three fiddlers.
The four of them were awesome.

:grin:
 
"Old Mother Hubbard
went to the cupboard
to find her poor dog a bone.

When she go there
the cupboard was bare
and the poor little doggy had none."

Hubbard's dog died. Starved.
 
Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a good boy am I!"

Narcissistic Horner defiled food with unsanitary thumb.
 
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