| "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man" | |
|---|---|
 William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | 1698 |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man", "Pat-a-Cake", "Patty-cake" or "Pattycake" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6486. [1]
The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Thomas D'Urfey's play The Campaigners from 1698, where a nurse says to her charges:
...and pat a cake Bakers man, so I will master as I can, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and throw't into the Oven. [2]
The next appearance is in Mother Goose's Melody (c. 1765) in the form:
Marking pastry or baked goods with an identifiable mark may stem from a time when households without an oven of their own could take their items to a local baker or bake house, paying to have their items finished for a small fee. Marking the pastry would have been a way to ensure the return of the proper item. [3]
The earliest version set to music appears in James Hook's "A Christmas Box" (1796). [4]
The rhyme often accompanies a clapping game between two people. It alternates between a normal individual clap by one person with two-handed claps with the other person. The hands may be crossed as well. This allows for a possibly complex sequence of clapping that must be coordinated between the two. If told by a parent to a child, the "B" and "baby" in the last two lines are sometimes replaced by the child's first initial and first name. [2]
The "pat-a-cake" song and clapping game was used by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their series of "Road to" films. The gag worked by means of adding a synchronised punch into the clapping game routine, allowing them to make their escape. [5]
Patty-cake appears as a plot point in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit where it is made out to be the cartoon equivalent of sex. [6]
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread, but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and pieces of bread to their center. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center". Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
"Little Bo-Peep" or "Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6487.
"Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat" or "Pussycat, Pussycat" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 15094.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical.
"Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13497.
"Simple Simon" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19777.
"Rub-A-Dub-Dub" is an English language nursery rhyme first published at the end of the 18th century in volume two of Hook's Christmas Box under the title "Dub a dub dub" rather than "Rub a dub dub". It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3101.
"Ring a Ring o' Roses", "Ring a Ring o' Rosie", or "Ring Around the Rosie", is a nursery rhyme, folk song and playground singing game. Descriptions first emerge in the mid-19th century, but are reported as dating from decades before, and similar rhymes are known from across Europe. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925.
"Roses Are Red" is the name of a love poem and children's rhyme with Roud Folk Song Index number 19798. It has become a cliché for Valentine's Day, and has spawned multiple humorous and parodic variants.
"Tinker, Tailor" is a counting game, nursery rhyme and fortune telling song traditionally played in England, that can be used to count cherry stones, buttons, daisy petals and other items. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 802. It is commonly used by children in both Britain and America for "counting out", e.g. for choosing who shall be "It" in a game of tag.
"The Farmer in the Dell" is a singing game, nursery rhyme, folksong, and children's song. It probably originated in Germany and was brought to America by immigrants. From there, it spread to many other nations and is popular in a number of languages. It is Roud Folk Song Index number 6306.
"Pease Porridge Hot" or "Pease Pudding Hot" is a children's singing game and nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19631.
"There Was a Crooked Man" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 1826.
"As I was going by Charing Cross", is an English language nursery rhyme. The rhyme was first recorded in the 1840s, but it may have older origins in street cries and verse of the seventeenth century. It refers to the equestrian statue of King Charles I in Charing Cross, London, and may allude to his death or be a puritan satire on royalist reactions to his execution. It was not recorded in its modern form until the mid-nineteenth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20564.
The Lion and the Unicorn are symbols of the United Kingdom. They are, properly speaking, heraldic supporters appearing in the full royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The lion stands for England and the unicorn for Scotland. The combination therefore dates back to the 1603 accession of James I of England who was already James VI of Scotland. By extension, they are also used in the arms of Newfoundland since 1637, the arms of Hanover between 1837–1866, and the arms of Canada since 1921.
"The Muffin Man" is a traditional nursery rhyme, children's song, or children's game of English origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7922.
"I Love Little Pussy", alternatively called "I Love Little Kitty", is an English language nursery rhyme about a person who is kind to a pet cat. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12824.
"Eeper Weeper" or "Heeper Peeper" is a popular English nursery rhyme and skipping song that tells the story of a chimney sweep who kills his second wife and hides her body up a chimney. The rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13497.
"To market, to market" or "To Market, To Market, to Buy a Fat Pig" is a folk nursery rhyme which is based upon the traditional rural activity of going to a market or fair where agricultural produce would be bought and sold. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19708.
"Backe, backe Kuchen" is a German-language children's rhyme. The original was in Saxony and Thuringia with several textual versions from 1840.
