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Pop goes the weasel

Posted by ESC on August 21, 2000

In Reply to: Weassel posted by Bill Wright on August 20, 2000

: I think that a 'weassel' was an iron used by London tailors, who popped their weassel when they were short of money.

POP GOES THE WEASEL! - "From earliest childhood we remember with fondness the nonsense rhyme about the monkey and the weasel. Remember? 'Every night when I come home, The Monkey's on the table. I take a stick and knock him off. And Pop goes the Weasel!' Here is the background of the original, and far different, British version of this rhyme - which turns out to be not such nonsense after all. It runs: 'Up and down the City Road, In and out the Eagle, That's the way the money goes. Pop goes the weasel.' And would you believe that the whole silly rhyme started with some drunken London hatters, the kind that today's sociologists would label 'compulsive drinkers'? True. And here's the explanation. The City Road was a street in London where there was a much-liked tavern ('pub' in England, of course) called The Eagle. To it on Saturday nights, and maybe oftener, went many a hatmaker. If he was short of funds, as often happened, he pawned ('popped') his weasel (a hatmaker's tool). So there you have, unmasked, the sordid truth behind that simple nursery rhyme." From Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988).

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