I was reading the comic Frazz today. Apparently, nowhere in Humpty Dumpty does it say he's an egg!
Why haven't I noticed this before? Who started this rumor that he's an egg? Did Sesame Street start all this?
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Humpty_...same_Street%29
I doubt it was Sesame Street. From Wikipedia:
Humpty Dumpty is a character in a nursery rhyme portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg. Most English-speaking children are familiar with the rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
The fact that Humpty Dumpty is an egg is not actually stated in the rhyme. In its first printed form, in 1810, it is a riddle, and exploits for misdirection the fact that "humpty dumpty" was 18th-Century reduplicative slang for a short, clumsy person. Whereas a clumsy person falling off a wall would not be irreparably damaged, an egg would be. The rhyme is no longer posed as a riddle, since the answer is now so well known. Similar riddles have been recorded by folklorists in other languages, such as Boule Boule in French, or Lille Trille in Swedish & Norwegian; though none is as widely known as Humpty Dumpty is in English.
Also, HD was identified as an egg as early as in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.
Funny, I always thought it was
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Had scrambled eggs for dinner again.
Okay Head Elf & Snowdenscold: Your ways confuse me (inflection of Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer). Here's the most confusing thing of all about Christmas:
Why is Santa Claus always wearing red and white?
Being here in the land of Coca-Cola, is it true that it is related to Coke's advertising and endless promotion?
Confused on this first full day of Hanukkah,
Lavabe
Sort of. The traditional red and white-suited Santa Claus, it's true, was heavily propagated by various Coca-Cola ad campaigns. But the modern image of Santa was in fact first created by Thomas Nast (the same guy who created the Democratic/Republican donkey/elephant) sometime in the 1860s/70s. Coke merely took his images and ran with them, of course with the obvious utility of a red & white motif to start.
Nor does it say that they found the holy family on the night of Jesus's birth by following the star, as we've been led to believe by all those Christmas figurine sets. : ) The sequence of events goes:
1) Magi show up and freak Herod out by wanting to know where the new King is, having seen his star.
2) Herod sends them out in search of Jesus, lying and saying that he wants to worship him too.
3) Magi see star, are overjoyed, and follow it to "the place where the child lay." (I don't know what the Greek word is, but my NIV translates this place as "house" - which is definitely very different from a "stable", suggesting that this may have been days, weeks, or even months afterwards)
4) Magi worship Jesus. Are warned in a dream not to go back to Herod and instead go home another way.
Indeed. We see the Magi in nativity scenes now, even though in many traditions Epiphany is on the twelfth night (12 days of xmas...). Historically, it could have been months or years later.
"You mean to tell me there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?"
"Duh."
Similarly, check out Wikipedia regarding the rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe. Pretty fascinating.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016
...and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love...you make.
Or is the hokey pokey what it really is all about?