• Question: Where in the nursery rhyme does it say humpty dumpty is an egg?

    Asked by yourfaceisabook to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      It doesn’t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty 😉

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
      Humpty Dumpty had E GG-reat fall.
      All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
      Couldn’t put Humpty together again

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It doesn’t! But apparently, the rhyme might have started life as a riddle, so you had to GUESS it was an egg.

      Makes sense that way, no? 😉

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Nowhere – he needs to be put back together after he falls off the wall but it doesn’t ever say he’s an egg. Interesting. I wonder why they chose an egg?

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It was never stated in the rhyme but there is a version of this rhyme from 1810 that had a picture drawn to go with it. And the picture was off an egg however even tehre rhyme didn’t state that humpty dumpty was an egg, but from this image is where we kept the idea that humpty dumpty was an egg. I believe they chose to draw an egg for a person as humpty dumpty was slang in those days for short and clumsy, and there eggs were short and easy to break.

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