Okay. Now I'm curious.

[deird_lj]

(This is all beer_good_foamy's fault.)


[Poll #1526051]


Is it a regional thing? A generational thing? Why all the confusion?

Comments

Spider

[1c2k3p4p5c.livejournal.com]

I think it's a generational difference. I whistled it to my mother (in her eighties) and she said "Itsy Bitsy". I believe I grew up with that and did a double-take in my daughters' childhood when they sang "Incy Wincy/Eency Weency" (Eency Weency is the spelling in the Playschool Useful Book publishe 1979). I switched in order to avoid confusing them.

[jl-in-the-lane.livejournal.com]

Uh, we kinda sing one about the spider climbing up a tree at playgroup, but I'd never ever heard it before and I don't know half the words:

Incy Wincy spider was climbing up a tree
Down came the snow and made poor Incy freeze
Out came the sun and melted all the snow
So Incy Wincy spider had another go.

[jl-in-the-lane.livejournal.com]

No, actually it turns out I do know the words.

Re: Spider

[jl-in-the-lane.livejournal.com]

!

!!

!!!

!!!!

!!!!!

My childhood is flashing before my eyes!

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

Itsy bitsy. Here's the version that was a fav when Time Jr. was itsy bitsy: http://www.amazon.com/Itsy-Bitsy-Spider-Iza-Trapani/dp/1879085690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266321953&sr=1-1

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I still say our version is far more complex. All other languages (except Finnish) seem to tell us only two things about the spider: it's small (wow, great character depth there) and it climbs up something constructed by man, so it really only has itself to blame. Whereas in the (original, damnit!) Swedish version, we're told two important things that have been removed (censored, I imagine) from all others: that the spider is vimsig (dizzy, ditzy, confused, kooky) and that it climbs up its own web. This isn't just a spider having an accident, it's clearly a very dark character drama about a troubled individual struggling to perform even everyday tasks, but never giving up despite failing again and again... made worse by the fact that the verb tense is unclear; it can be present tense (making it a one-time thing), it can be past tense (suggesting an ever-repeating self-destructive cycle), and it can even be in the imperative: we, the singers, are ordering the spider to fail ("Climb up the web! Ha, here comes the rain! Now, climb up again!") because we need someone to look down on and laugh at. As children inevitably do when they sing this. It's really quite horrible when you think about it.

Yes, I write meta on children's songs.

[naatz.livejournal.com]

One of the Hebrew versions does say 'a small spider climbed [his] web' {spiderweb = 'koor', wasll = 'keer', only one different phoneme}. Our version though make the spider one stubborn son of a bitch, with him getting back to what he did earlier. Either that or it's a repetition of the first line, and the poor spider drowned.

|Meduza|

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the default would be Incy winsy because that is the original version. :~P

My mother says that was the version she learnt at school in the 1930s anyway.

Itsy bitsy is clearly the American version...!!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Yep - but OUR spider, being much bigger than your itsy bitsy one (which I presume is American for small, like the polka dot bikini!,)will KILL your tiny spider and prove us to be right!

You know, it never occurred to me that Americans have weird words for Incy Wincy Spider... Isn't LJ wonderful? :~P

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

And very good meta it is too!

Re: Spider

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

My mother swear she knew Incy Wincy Spider at school - but she is a very old lady and might be wrong. I, on the other hand, am only a fairly old lady, and I'm pretty sure we learnt it at school in the very early sixties - and the spider was definitely Incy Wincy!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

You mean you think Itsy and Bitsy are words? :~P

Re: JL pulls the 'I'VE GOT AN EXPERT OPINION' card

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Yay! LJ has an expert for all occasions! Seems reasonable to me.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I wonder what Legolas learnt...

[rahirah]

I see your mother and raise you a mother who learned 'itsy bitsy' in the 1920s. *g*

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hee! Short of a seance I cannot check with any even older relative... I guess we'll just have to settle for there being two spiders climbing two spouts on opposite sides of the Atlantic!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I doubt an elf would be impressed with that spider's climbing abilities. If they have that song, it's probably called "Clumsy Bumsy Spider".

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

From what I recall of that Mythbusters episodes, DDLs can. It just doesn't hurt much. (And Adam had several crawling over his arm and it took a while for just one of them to do it, so maybe they just don't do it often.)

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

...Well I thought it was itsy bitsy but now I'm not so sure.

Hold Everything!

[1c2k3p4p5c.livejournal.com]

I take it all back! I have been singing the song to myself and I just realised I actually sang "Ipsy Wipsy Spider" as a child. We need another option please.

[deird1]

Please to be noting Mum's most recent comment, down the bottom of the page...

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Clearly if we can track who invented the folk song, then we can determine the native origin and thus rule the world.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Hmmph, like a website proves you're right??? Noooo.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

AGREED.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

laaaaaaaaaaame

I mean. I respect cultural differences.

Except when they're wrong.