Talk:There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Different Version
All versions are the same. Is there supposed to be multiple versions in this article? --216.21.150.97 18:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

have you noticed the similarity between Old Mother Hubbard's

She went to the undertaker's To buy him a coffin; When she came back The dog was laughing.

vs

Old Woman Who Live in a Shoe's

Then out went th' old woman to bespeak 'em a coffin,

And when she came back, she found 'em all a-loffeing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.182.164.223 (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Song referenced by the Doobie Brothers???
Wasn't the story of the Old Woman who lived in a Shoe covered by the Doobie Brothers, or Michael MacDonald back in the late '70s??? --71.189.225.151 (talk) 20:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Margery Buttwhistle??
That bit about Margery Buttwhistle the late eighteenth-century village drunk and prostitute sounds like a big joke to me. -- &oelig; &trade; 22:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the name is damned unlikely and the source is not reliable. I have deleted it.--Sabrebd (talk) 22:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

On the restoration of this item. Although this story turns up several times on the web, I cannot find it any reliable sources and, suspiciously no exact details that could be checked (such as place of birth or death or exact dates) are given. It is pretty clear from the wording that most of these sources are just copying each other. Wikipedia needs to be careful not to do the same. I am happy to have this if a reliable source can be found according to WP:RS.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 21:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, reliable sources are definitely needed for something this dubious. This is how urban myths and rumors are born, someone prints a joke article in a magazine, some other sources copy it, then dozens of websites copy those sources thinking it's real, then dozens more other sources refer to the websites and so on exponentially, until a Wikipedia editor gets a hold of it and now it's become "fact". -- &oelig; &trade; 00:22, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Beatrix Potter
This rhyme was referenced in Beatrix Potter's book Apply Dapply's Nursery Rhymes.

Beatrix Potter Image

You know the old woman

who lived in a shoe?

And had so many children

she didn't know what to do?

I THINK if she lived

in a little shoe-house--

That little old woman

was surely a mouse!

--Karen Beth Jones (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Version with more positive ending
According to W. W. Denslow's Mother Goose at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18546/18546-h/18546-h.htm) there is a version with a more pleasant ending:


 * There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
 * She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
 * She gave them some broth with plenty of bread,
 * She kissed them all fondly and sent them to bed.

Should this version be mentioned, does anyone know any more about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.51.126.69 (talk) 07:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

References in popular culture?
Would it be worth it to list certain appearances of this character, or references to her, in popular culture, especially music? I can think of multiple examples off the top of my head -- someone remind me to think about this again later. RexSueciae (talk) 04:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Late response, but no. See WP:POPCULTURE. I doubt that any of the pop culture references/appearances are noteworthy enough to warrant mentioning here. V2Blast (talk) 10:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)