Lingustic Legends

 

Did you ever think that Ring Around The Rosie makes reference to the Black Plague of the Middle Ages? Or that the whole nine yards refers to the length of a machinegun ammo belt? Or perhaps that Eskimos have 500 words for snow? If so, then you have been taken in by a linguistic urban legend. Like classic urban legends, these linguistic legends are popular and pervasive. Instead of propagating cautionary tales about the dangers of modern life, linguistic urban folklore propagates stories and “facts” about language.

 

Ring Around The Rosie

In all reality the nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosie does not make reference to the black plague- although there have been many debates and decent evidence to support it.

 

Folklorist Philip Hiscock suggests that the more likely explantion is to be found in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century. In fact, none of the early collections say anything about any connections with the Plague.