Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 02:24:09 EST

From: Bapopik Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: There Was a Little Girl; O.K.; Onion; Poker; Billiards; Glass Ceiling



THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL



There was a little girl

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead;

When she was good

She was very, very good,

But when she was bad,

She was horrid.

"There Was a Little Girl," 1883,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(as quoted on page 298 of Stuart Beg Flexner's LISTENING TO AMERICA.)



That 1883 date would take some doing. Henry Wadworth Longfellow was born

in 1807 and died in 1882. (I'm not even trying to find these things, I

swear!)

Neither the AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN QUOTATIONS nor

BARTLETT'S date the poem; Bartlett's goes in chronological order and lists the

poem between 1879 and 1882 poems.

Tom Dalzell didn't ask for "sin poems," but this is a famous one. In

baseball slang, pitchers are sometimes called "the girl with the curl." The

fastball can be "working," and the pitcher is very, very good. Or the pitcher

is very, very bad and gives up home runs, and heads for an early shower.

Philip Roth wrote a book called WHEN SHE WAS GOOD. I tried this phrase

on the internet, and the Spice Girls came up. A 1997 book by Patricia Pearson

is titled WHEN SHE WAS BAD--VIOLENT WOMEN AND THE MYTH OF INNOCENCE.

There's not much for anyone to add here, except for an idiot like me, who

checks the New York Sun, 14 March 1871, pg. 2, col. 7:



There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl

That hung right down on her forehead.

And when she was good

She was very, very good,

But when she was bad, she was horrid.



This (two days later) is from the New York Sun, 16 March 1871, pg. 2,

col. 7:



A feeble contribution to the volume which shall contain the story of the

"Little Girl who had a Little Curl:"

There was a little boy

Who had for a toy

A clothes-line hung on a pulley

He would often seize the end,

And be hoisted by a friend

Remarking meanwhile, "Oh, it's bully!"



Great! First Henry Clay, now Henry Longfellow!

The Sun's poems are unattributed. I haven't researched this, but they're

earlier than the published Longfellow poem. Also, for a six-line poem, three

lines are slightly different!

Do we have a stolen or an early "girl"? Until I get to the library...



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