Some people can't help that there last name is something weird. When you think of it you think of the nursey ryme. But lets look a little further into the nursey ryme.
Ring around the Rosey
"Ring Around the Rosey" or "Ring-a-Ring O'Roses" is a nursery rhyme or children's song and game that first appeared in print in 1881 but may have been recited as early as the 1790s.
The most common variation of the song in the USA:
- Ring around the rosey
- Pocket full of posey
- Ashes, ashes,
- We all fall down.
In the UK, it is usually sung thus:
- Ring a ring o'roses
- A pocketful of posies
- ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo (imitative of sneezing)
- We all fall down.
Children stand in a circle holding hands and skipping in one direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, as they sing the song. At the end of the last line, the group falls down into a heap.
Plague myth
A common belief is that the rhyme commemorates the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England. An origin as early as the 14th century is claimed for the song, but this is possible only if it were recited for centuries without being written down (as it first appeared in print in the late 19th century).
In this "plague" interpretation, the first line refers to the round red rash that would break out on the skin of plague victims. The second line's "pocket full of posey" would have been a pocket in the garment of a victim filled with something fragrant, such as flowers that aimed to conceal the smell from the sores. A second possible explanation for this line is that it referred to the scientific thought of the time that fresh-smelling flowers would purify the air around them. A third possibility includes the idea that "posey" is derived from an Old English word for puss, in which case the pocket would be referring to the swelling sore. Bodies of victims were burned upon death, hence the last line: "ashes, ashes, we all fall down". Several alternate endings to the song exist, one being: "achoo, achoo, we all fall down", another possible symptom. It is unclear which ending was the original version.
It is doubtful that the song originated during the plague, and its connection to the disease is tenuous, though commonly accepted. The first time it was suggested to be plague related seems to be in 1961, James Leasor's book The Plague and the Fire. Its origin seems in actuality to be as a dancing game that children may have played to get around the Protestant dancing bans of the 19th century.
The rhyme was first published in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes (1881) and there is no evidence of an earlier version. The lack of sources recorded before the late 1800s make a mediaeval origin very unlikely despite the possibility of oral tradition.