Talk:There Was a Crooked Man

Lede
Removed most of the first paragraph since it just paraphrased the poem. --Tocharianne 18:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Crooked sixpence
In verse "He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile" I think that the crooked sixpence refers to a discarded, bender love token. --Chris Buttigieg 17:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

"The Wolf Among Us" video game
Removed a lot of the details regarding his role in The Wolf Among Us. TWAU plot details belong on TWAU pages. --PlayAVideoGame (talk) 02:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The article needs a section about contemporary cultural references to this 1800s rhyme. It seems like Crooked Man is featured in TWAU and should be mentioned somehow in this article. -71.174.188.32 (talk) 15:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

pronounced as 'crookED'
The word crooked is pronounced as 'crookED' the emphasis being placed upon the 'ED' in the word. This was common in olde England and many references can be found in this type of pronunciation in the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). -71.174.188.32 (talk) 15:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * www.rhymes.org.uk/there_was_a-crooked_man.htm

the word STILE
What sources are there for how popular this (and other) traditional nursery rhymes have been in which places at which times?

As a nursery rhyme, these are important foundations of the education of children, foundations of language usage and words. These traditional materials expose young children to obsolete words that they might otherwise never be familiar with. This particulr rhyme can be the basis of knowing the word STILE which would otherwise never be known by children growing up in cities.

Since the word STILE is rather antique/obsolete, and the thing itself somewhat fading from existance (according to current regulations in England), it would be good if the article had an illustration of the rhyme that included a stile, and perhaps discussed the term etc a little. There must be some famous classic illustration from the 1800s that is out of copyright that could be used? -71.174.188.32 (talk) 15:42, 8 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any evidence that the word 'stile' is obsolete; that it's antique is irrelevant - most English words have been in use for hundreds of years. Can you say what word is currently used to refer to a stile without using the word itself? Maurice Sturt (talk) 08:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

border between England and Scotland
It is interesting to include a section about origin and meaning of this nursery rhyme -- however, it would also be good to include whatever is known about whether ordinary folk in the 1800s were familiar with such meanings. For example, if this rhyme is supposed to be referring to the border between England and Scotland, but the general folk are not aware of this meaning, that aspect becomes of limited academic significance.-71.174.188.32 (talk) 15:53, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Crooked Old Man
Is this how it goes? As I seem to recall, there was a crooked old man, not a crooked man, who lived in a crooked old house, not a crooked house. allixpeeke (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Can you cite a source for your version, please? I am unaware of such alternative wording. Maurice Sturt (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Roud Number
I notice the opening paragraph mentions its Roud Number is 1826—with a dead citation—but the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_folk_songs_by_Roud_number says it's 4826. Shouldn't this be reconciled? --Zemedelphos (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2021 (UTC)