Chiff and Fipple Forums

I'm confused. Hep me out here, folks. I am genuinely curious.

Recently I've seen a few different people on the forums hereabouts refer to a tune by the name of "London Bridges". Is that the same tune which is a kind of nursery rhyme here in the UK, and called by the name "London Bridge" after the bridge (singular) of that name?

Or is it something different? And is the name somehow mutating in the States to something which seems me meaningless over here (because it no longer refers to the bridge which the nursery rhyme is about)?

Perhaps people are confusing 'London Bridge is' with 'London bridges'. Here on West Coast USA, the song would be called either 'London Bridge' or 'London Bridge is falling down.'

Ill add that, as a child, i always knew it properly, and all the other children I knew were the same.

My personal feeling is that folks calling it 'bridges' are the exception rather than the rule, but I could be wrong.

awildman wrote:Ill add that, as a child, i always knew it properly, and all the other children I knew were the same.

My personal feeling is that folks calling it 'bridges' are the exception rather than the rule, but I could be wrong.

I'd like to think you're right. I mean, first of all, it is the same tune we're talking about is it? There isn't a separate tune which does have something to do with multiple bridges in London, as opposed to the one bridge that bears the name "London Bridge", is there?

Meanwhile, it does seem to have cropped up a lot lately as "London Bridges" ... It's disconcerting ... almost disorienting ...

I don't know of any tunes like that, certainly not Irish ones.

I did a Google search for London Bridges, and the Google machine translated it to London Bridge, so apparently it is a common search. I might have been mistaken about the prevalence of wrong lyrics.

Barring people's ignorance, it is conceivable that a method book somewhere has a tune with that title and those of us who don't use books missed it. Maybe somebody here with access to such books could shed some light.

I just found some of the recent posts here in the Whistle forum that you're talking about. People are just screwing up the title.

Lumping it together with Mary Had a Little Lamb etc makes it quite clear they are speaking of London Bridge and not some unknown tune.

benhall.1 wrote:I am genuinely curious.

So was I (up to a point), but not enough to post about it when I'm seeing almost no chance of it being a different tune.

Recently I've seen a few different people on the forums hereabouts refer to a tune by the name of "London Bridges".

It's actually just one member recently. Though a search reveals a few more from 10 years and more ago...

Edit: and of course 'Bridge is' and 'Bridges' are homonyms!

Peter Duggan wrote:Edit: and of course 'Bridge is' and 'Bridges' are homonyms!

Oh good grief! Are they back??!?!!

benhall.1 wrote:

awildman wrote:Ill add that, as a child, i always knew it properly, and all the other children I knew were the same.

My personal feeling is that folks calling it 'bridges' are the exception rather than the rule, but I could be wrong.

I'd like to think you're right. I mean, first of all, it is the same tune we're talking about is it?

Yes.

benhall.1 wrote:There isn't a separate tune which does have something to do with multiple bridges in London, as opposed to the one bridge that bears the name "London Bridge", is there?

No.

benhall.1 wrote:Meanwhile, it does seem to have cropped up a lot lately as "London Bridges" ... It's disconcerting ... almost disorienting ...

People will get it wrong because of a shaky grasp of the details of their own language, but that should not be considered an offense in itself; we cannot all be Somerset Maugham. It's why we see "should of" rather than "should have", which we pronounce as "should've". So, taking the way things sound into account, for me the translation of something so simple as "London Bridges" to "London Bridge is" should pose no problem. The offense is in not caring that a degenerative mistake happens repeatedly on a broad scale. That is complacency. It is knowingly being in harness with the dumbing-down of a society, which only further jeopardizes our ability to make right sense of the world around us. Until that changes, we have no one to blame for our communicative disabilities and our miscomprehensions but ourselves. But that's tiresome and unfashionable. Where's my Xbox?

It's odd how everyone wants a better world, but literacy is somehow not part of the equation. Remember that corruption feeds on ignorance and obscurantism. If someone finds that political, bite me.

I'm afraid you've lost me with that lot, Nano. What are you driving at?

[It is, of course, entirely possible that I am just in a phase of unusual stupidity, even for me.]

benhall.1 wrote:I'm afraid you've lost me with that lot, Nano. What are you driving at?

Oh, dear. And here I thought I was clear as day. Suffice it to say that I took "London Bridges" and extrapolated it into a rant on the decay of Western Civilization.

Nanohedron wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:I'm afraid you've lost me with that lot, Nano. What are you driving at?

Oh, dear. And here I thought I was clear as day. Suffice it to say that I took "London Bridges" and extrapolated it into a rant on the decay of Western Civilization.

Oh. Ok.

benhall.1 wrote:Oh. Ok.

Not all that impressed, are we?

Nanohedron wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:Oh. Ok.

Not all that impressed, are we?

Oh yes. Very.

Nanohedron wrote:That is complacency. It is knowingly being in harness with the dumbing-down of a society, which only further jeopardizes our ability to make right sense of the world around us.

Or, it's one of the engine's of linguistic change, which (you'll have heard me say before) all living languages do, constantly. Everything we now think of as correct English began as just such an error, and no doubt caused someone from an earlier generation to rail similarly about degeneration.

In short, it's only an error if it doesn't catch on. If it does, it's change.

~~

The change I've been following is "catch [on] fire". Correct for my generation was that the passive voice case is "catch fire", analogous to "fall ill" or "turn yellow". This compares with the active voice phrase "light on fire". Millennials will have none of it. To them, the correct phrase is "catch on fire" - a weird mix of active and passive. I know the rules why my version is correct, and I can explain them, but that's useless to me once the zeitgeist has moved on.