The Outdated Language of Children

The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
by Iona & Peter Opie. Republished by New York Review Books, 2001, 417 pp

by Merri Rosenberg

Don’t expect to pull out this volume and read it cover to cover at one sitting. It’s hardly the kind of page-turner to keep you up at night.

Originally published in 1959, and recently reissued, this comprehensive text documents and explicates the origins of children’s rhyming games, playground rituals, jokes and secrets. There’s something charming and quaint about both the tone and language of the authors’ approach, which gives as much weight to a child’s riddle or so-called ‘nonsense’ talk, as scholars would take with, say, James Joyce.

The very fact that the Opies (who worked independently on the project from their home in Hampshire, England, and in their day were the most respected antiquarians of children’s literature) paid attention to what children had to say when they were by themselves was fairly radical. And that effort made it possible for scholars, educators, psychologists and others to be taken seriously in their fields by taking children’s worlds seriously.

Still, while recognizing the work’s landmark status as a critical watershed in exploring childhood and child development, especially in the realm of language and its role, there’s no denying the book’s very real limitations for a contemporary reader. It’s too rooted in both its time—nearly half a century ago—and its place—Britain. Some customs are mystifying to those not familiar with the idea of being the ‘new boy’ at an English boarding school, as are references to rituals that surround British celebrations of Shrove Tuesday, May Day or Guy Fawkes’ Day. The examples that refer to that era’s rhymes about Charlie Chaplin, Betty Grable and Shirley Temple are also too dated for a contemporary reader to comprehend the parody involved. It is doubtful that a teacher supervising an elementary school class at recess would overhear many of the rhymes or games that the Opies document and deconstruct.

So what’s the point of looking at this now, as something other than an historical curiosity? The underlying thesis bears repetition: that what children learn from each other is more real and entertaining than what they learn from grownups. If nursery rhymes are propagated by adults, for a moral or other educational purpose, then what children chant when they’re among their own is truly representative of who they are, and what they think. Thus, modern rap apparently has its roots in what the Opies discovered so long ago in the playgrounds of England.

So, those hypnotic jump-rope rhymes or the invocations to ensure good luck or banish ill luck, still have the power to reveal children’s thoughts and feelings to those adults who know how to listen.

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