Bingo was his name-o
B-I-N-G-O!
Not the farmer
Is Bingo the farmer or the dog? It's a genuine question. On the internet. Here's how we'd answer it. The first line of the rhyme is:
There was a farmer who had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o.
Now, if there was an extra comma, like this:
There was a farmer, who had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o,
then we'd agree that the farmer was called Bingo.
And, just to clinch our argument, the first recorded transcription read:
The farmer's dog leapt over the stile,
His name was little Bingo.
A Drinking Song
Experts think the tune is of Scottish origins - like Soundbops! It was first written down in 1780, apparently by an actor called William Swords.
It was originally a drinking song, and we think drinkers would take a glug of their lemonade at the end of each verse. The original reads:
The farmer loved a cup of good ale,
He called it rare good stingo.
Over time, it became a nursery rhyme and a counting game. SIngers spell out B-I-N-G-O in the first verse, and replace the letters one by one with a clap as the song goes on.
Leapt o'er the stile
There was a Victorian comic writer (and clergyman) called Richard Barham. He wrote a series of funny stories and poems for a magazine, and eventually put them all together in a book called The Ingoldsby Legends in 1840.
He wrote about a jackdaw who steals a Cardinal's ring, and gave a recipe for salad, and wrote a pretend-old version of Bingo called A Franklyn's Dogge. We call this a parody.
It is so convincing that many people still believe it was a Medieval poem that Rev. Barham found.
Here's how simple it is to play Bingo on Soundbops:
Images: Charles Deluvio, Unsplash, WikiCommons
The Soundbops Blog
