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Article: We open can of worms by digging into song; Nobody likes me, everybody hates me Let's see what we can learn (about ditty).(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- December 20, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Push it away or turn the page. Tender gullets may protest the poems that follow, and even the most steel-bellied may eventually blanch. You might recall that I asked the origin of a bit of doggerel my mom would sing: Everybody hates me, nobody likes me, guess I'll go eat worms. I wish I could report that it's actually a line from a classic show - Broadway Wormeaters of 1937! - but its origins are lost.
From what I can deduce, this ditty spontaneously arose in the mocking mouths of children 60 years ago, and made its way along some strange underground network. It happens every generation, and no one knows why; scientists are still baffled by the fact that kids in ...