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scan of Tommy Thumb's pretty song book. Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song-Book is the oldest extant anthology of English nursery rhymes, published in London in 1744.It contains the oldest printed texts of many well-known and popular rhymes, as well as several that eventually dropped out of the canon of rhymes for children.
First and third lines have a feminine rhyme and the second and fourth lines have a masculine rhyme. A 1 abA 2 A 1 abA 2 – Two stanzas, where the first lines of both stanzas are exactly the same, and the last lines of both stanzas are the same. The second lines of the two stanzas are different, but rhyme at the end with the first and last lines.
The first page of "London Bridge is Falling Down" from an 1815 edition. Tommy Thumb's Song Book is the earliest known collection of British nursery rhymes, printed in 1744. No original copy has survived, but its content has been recovered from later reprints. It contained many rhymes that are still well known.
The rhyme has existed in various forms since well before 1820 [1] and is common in many languages using similar-sounding nonsense syllables. Some versions use a racial slur, which has made the rhyme controversial at times. Since many similar counting-out rhymes existed earlier, it is difficult to know its exact origin.
The rhyme first appeared in print in Songs for the Nursery. Little Robin Redbreast: Great Britain 1744 [60] First mentioned in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book. Little Tommy Tucker: Great Britain 1744 [61] First mentioned in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book. London Bridge Is Falling Down 'My Fair Lady' or 'London Bridge' Great Britain 1744 [62]
A later book in the English-to-French genre is N'Heures Souris Rames (Nursery Rhymes), published in 1980 by Ormonde de Kay. [6] It contains some forty nursery rhymes, among which are Coucou doux de Ledoux (Cock-A-Doodle-Doo), Signe, garçon. Neuf Sikhs se pansent (Sing a Song of Sixpence) and Hâte, carrosse bonzes (Hot Cross Buns).
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Rhyming dictionaries for Old English, Elizabethan poetry, or Standard English would have quite different content. Rhyming dictionaries are invaluable for historical linguistics ; as they record pronunciation, they can be used to reconstruct pronunciation differences and similarities that are not reflected in spelling.