I wonder how many kids learn Mother Goose now, maybe fewer than when I read ‘em to my kids four decades ago, though of course I’d learned dozens as a kid, and maybe now many learn from parents who also learned by hearing, not reading. And "Itsy, bitsy spider went up the garden spout": it's the outdoor yard spout-the British word for "yard" is "garden." And there are more, yet we consider them American nursery rhymes. Speaking of England, these have a distinctly British accent, like "Little Robin Redbreast": that's the British bird, very small, while the American Robin is good-sized for a songbird. That was printed in early Mother Goose books in England, but maybe suppressed (like Sir John Suckling’s “Love is the fart / Of every heart,” 1646) until unearthed in the last few decades. The Real Mother Goose may not include my favorite kids’ rhyme to teach college freshmen.
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