Playground Jungle
Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Did "Shut Up" Once Mean the same thing as "Netflix and Chill?"

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Long about 1990 in Des Moines, I heard it confidently asserted that if you told someone to "shut up," you were really saying ...
Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Dude: A Pimple on a Donkey's Butt?

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I think I was in about fourth grade when people started saying that the word "dude" actually meant "a pimple on a donkey'...
Friday, January 31, 2014

Jesus Christ Superstar and Popular Songs of the 16th century

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Here's an interesting one submitted by a reader - a parody to the title song from Jesus Christ: Superstar . The first couple of lines ar...
2 comments:
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Smelliest Fart in History

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Here's a reader submission first heard in Rowland Heights, CA in 1981. Sung to the tune of "Snoopy vs the Red Baron" by the Ro...
2 comments:
Monday, September 30, 2013

Fidel Castro Was His Name We Hear

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Here's a reader submission of a song to the tune of "Casey Jones" (well, actually to the tune of the parody of Casey Jones tha...
Thursday, October 4, 2012

Suicide, Graveyard and Swamp Water

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What did you  call the drink you created by mixing all the kinds of pop at the fountain drink station together? There weren't many res...
13 comments:

A Million Tickets, Tootsie Pop Wrappers, and Other Collections

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Here's a long entry from the e-book, which I felt like posting after finding an interesting article from 1897 in the Chicago Tribune  ar...
5 comments:
Thursday, September 22, 2011

Gene, Gene, Made a Machine

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If you’ve heard this rhyme in the last fifty years, you probably heard it as something like this: Gene, gene, made a machine Joe, Joe, made...
9 comments:
Friday, September 2, 2011

Stepping on a Crack

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Here’s one that everyone knew to chant while walking down the sidewalk: Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back . This has been r...
5 comments:
Tuesday, August 30, 2011

With Nothing On At All

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Hi, folks! We here at the Smart Aleck's Guide HQ are busily preparing for an ebook based on this site, and wanted to share a recent ad...
1 comment:
Friday, July 8, 2011

"Bike" and other slang terms for genitals

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When I was in fourth grade, a rumor went around that "bike" was a French word for "penis." This probably came from the ...
11 comments:
Friday, May 27, 2011

Butt Naked vs Buck Naked

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Which version did you say? We favored "butt naked," but were aware of "buck naked." Historically, "buck naked...
2 comments:
Saturday, April 9, 2011

A Soldier I Shall Be

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A few years ago I played a gig in a bar that was the last stop on a "hash." Hashing was a new phenomenon to me - the best descript...
4 comments:
Sunday, February 27, 2011

Snake Bites and Indian Burns

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Kids at my school weren't THAT bad - I never saw anyone really badly beaten up. About the worst of it was that we all got the occasional...
11 comments:
Saturday, February 26, 2011

Salute the king...

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Several versions of this: Salute the King (military salute) Salute the queen (naval salute) Salute the German submarine (thumb your nose...
7 comments:
Friday, February 18, 2011

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

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It's one of the first taunts I learned - and the one that taught me the "taunt rhythm," the meter and tones that make any song...
29 comments:
Thursday, February 17, 2011

Tarzan, the Monkey Man

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Here's one that was well known at my school: Tarzan, the monkey man got no brains, but he's got a tan A more common version see...
42 comments:
Sunday, January 30, 2011

Michael Jackson and the Pledge of Allegiance

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Here's a reader submission that the contributor first heard in 1984 in Placentia, CA. It would probably get kids in a lot more trouble ...
5 comments:
Sunday, December 12, 2010

Packing Snow vs Building Snow vs.....

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It is widely known that Eskimoes have some incredibly large number of words for "snow," with different terms for all the many type...
6 comments:
Friday, September 17, 2010

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Burning of the School (updated)

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This is widely reported to be the most wide-spread of all playground songs. Personally, though, I never heard it as a kid. The tune "...
43 comments:
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