Amazing - and Amusing - Children's Rhymes

The pesky earworm strikes again!

This article (which you are currently reading) was inspired by an earworm. Yes, an earworm! An earworm is not a worm in the sense of "Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Annelida." An earworm is a purely psychological parasite. If you have never heard the term earworm before, then today is your lucky day! Once you learn what "earworm" means, I think you will find it to be quite a useful term.

An earworm is any song or part of a song that gets stuck in your head and replays over and over and over, with or without the secondary effect of causing you to sing or mumble the words out loud. The term first appeared in German, as ohrwurm. However, perhaps with expanded use in English, we will some day find "earworm" in our trusty Webster's dictionaries right after earwax and earwig. I would also advocate for the adoption of the term by other languages. Already, one can find several Spanish web sites referring to the phenomenon as el gusano del oído.

Anyway, my own personal earworm in this case was the Spanish "playground anthem" of "Pican, pican los mosquitos" (lyrics below). After going through life for several days with this lovely ditty bouncing around in my head, it finally occurred to me that perhaps the linguist within me was trying to send me a message.

I set out to analyze the cleverness of the wordplay involved in this song. The lyrics seem all the more clever when we consider that they were presumably invented by young schoolchildren. As you can see in the lyrics, the regular use of consonant rhyme combined with the adherence to a regular rhythm will invariably "trick" the listener into filling in the blank with a "dirty" word at the end of each stanza.

Then I had an interesting realization. I realized that I actually learned a very similar song in English during my childhood. "Miss Suzie Had a Steamboat" is actually built around the exact same rhyming device as Pican los mosquitos! Spanish and English are among the top five most spoken languages in the world. The fact that both languages exhibit the same type of "rhyme humor" in their children's songs means that millions of children throughout the world have experienced this phenomenon. It seems to me that any "musical/comic technique" as widespread as this one deserves to have a name!

So... what to call this musical comical device?

I have narrowed my personal choices down to three favorites: ellipsis, hiatus, and "bait and switch." Ellipsis and hiatus definitely have a more academic ring to them, but their descriptive power is limited to the structure of the songs. "Bait and switch" is perhaps the most accurate description of the effect that the technique has on the listener. As I mentioned before, the rhyme scheme, coupled with the situational context of each stanza, implies a certain ending and creates the expectation that the verse will conclude with a well-known cuss word. However, the element of surprise kicks in, and the implied vulgarity is never actually spoken. Instead, in a last-minute twist of playfulness, the beginning of the cuss word blends into the ending of an unexpected and totally innocuous term, which in turn serves as the intro to the next stanza. For example:

          Pican, pican los mosquitos.
          Pican con gran disi-MULO.
          Unos pican en el cuello,
          y otros pican en el...

          CU-ando [followed by the rest of stanza 2]

In the above example, the rhyme with "disimulo" leaves virtually no doubt that the stanza will conclude with "culo" (pardon my French) - but, the expected ending never comes! The "bait and switch" is such that you are baited into thinking you will hear "culo," but the "switch" occurs and replaces culo with cu...ando.

Now, most of us take rhyming for granted. After all, it doesn't take a genius to match one word with another to create a rhyme. To go one step further, most of us take language as a whole for granted, much less the ability to rhyme! Yet, think about it. Language is an amazing, powerful, adaptable, infinite tool. It truly is wondrous to think that we all "receive" language "for free" just by being born a human.

Rhyme, then, is important for two reasons. First, it is important just by virtue of being part of human language. Second, it is an integral part of what we call "phonological awareness." Phonological awareness is one step in the language development of a child. When a child becomes attuned to rhyme and learns to recognize and create rhyme, that child is well on her way to ultimately grasping the patterns and relationships involved in reading and writing.

So, if your child comes home singing one of these "dirty little rhymes," give thanks to the language fairy that she blessed your child with the gift of rhyme!

Read the lyrics below, or download the audio files and listen!