Little Miss Who? Sat on Her What? Eating What?
By: Keith
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider, who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
For a simple nursery Rhyme this one sure holds quite a bit of confusion. When I was a kid I never asked anybody what it all meant. But, my boy seems to be more curious than me and he wanted to know. So I looked it up.
1. Miss Muffet: She is most likely the daughter of Dr. Thomas Muffet, an entomologist who lived in the 16th century and who is speculated to have written the rhyme. Still, it’s speculation and nobody is really sure. One thing historians do agree on is that it is not a reference to Mary, Queen of Scots as some people have thought.
2. Tuffet: Wikipedia says a tuffet is a low stool type thing that is entirely covered in fabric with no legs and possibly a wooden frame for support. It could also have referred to a bumped up grassy piece of land that would be suitable for sitting on.
3. Curds and Whey: That’s old fashioned speak for cottage cheese. Apparently skim milk is made into cottage cheese by adding an enzyme called rennin to the milk. The rennin separates the various milk proteins (of which there are many and which are quite healthy). The lumpy pieces that remain afterwards are called curds, and the liquid part is the whey. Skim milk plus rennin equals curds and whey, otherwise known as cottage cheese.
There you have it folks. That might have taken me days to figure out before the Internets. As it is this represents about 15 minutes of work and a lifetime of cleared fogginess on the matter.
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You are hilarious! I always thought those nursery rhymes were so strange. My mom just sent me a copy of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes for my little ones and as I was reading through some and remembering some from my own childhood I thought to myself, “These are really wacky!” I mean…the cow jumping over the moon…strange words to that rhyme. Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean? Strange I say. Strange. However, as strange as I say those are, I have always enjoyed Shel Silverstein poems. Maybe I am the strange one?
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I tell my daughter it’s french for pizza and beer.
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What about Ring around the rosy?
Ring around the rosy–familiar markings left by the plague
pocket full of posies–people, to mask a bit of the stench of their plight would keep flowers in their pockets.
ashes, ashes, we all fall down! –bodies were burned in order to hopefully stop the plague, but obviously it still brought down alot of people!!!
Gross isn’t it? Oh those cute little rhymes!
Mitzi, yeah, that’s another really weird one. I wonder why we keep these things around if they’re all so outdated
I’ve actually looked that up before too…because I was curious…and because my 3-year-old dressed up as Little Miss Muffet this past Halloween. I may be a little biased, but I think she was definitely the cutest Little Miss Muffet ever to walk the earth (oh, and she is not at all afraid of spiders…).
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Stephanie, There are so many silly Nursery Rhymes that I don’t understand. I wonder why we don’t just make up some more modern ones that everyone gets
Oh, and good thinking on the miss muffet costume. That’s pretty original!
I thought you might like this…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_o42j9jP08
It’s long but hysterical, and he makes fun of rhymes, like we’ve been talking about. I couldn’t find a shorter version. But it’s still all pretty funny! Enjoy!