Baa Baa Rainbow Bollocks.
You may last week have come across the story about the kids at a nursery that sing "baa baa rainbow sheep" instead of "baa baa black sheep". The Sexpress ran the story on their front page:
The Diana Express wasn't the only paper to report it though. Both of Murdoch's daily rags also did, as well as Daisy McAndrew's fantastic newspaper, the Mail, and the Daily Moron, sorry, Mirror.
Just one problem: the reasons for the singing of words other than black is nothing to do with "political correctness". Today's Private Eye reports that it also isn't a new story. The Daily Star and Sun both first ran it back in February 1986, followed by the Daily Mail in October of the same year. The following year Islington council took the SDP to court to stop them alleging they had removed the word black from the nursery rhyme in a party political broadcast, when they had done no such thing. According to the Eye the story came round again in 2000, this time in Birmingham, and as recently as last year, when the Mail on Sunday alleged it had happened in Aberdeen. Not a single one of the reports were based on the facts.
Here's the last paragraph in full from the Eye:
The Diana Express wasn't the only paper to report it though. Both of Murdoch's daily rags also did, as well as Daisy McAndrew's fantastic newspaper, the Mail, and the Daily Moron, sorry, Mirror.
Just one problem: the reasons for the singing of words other than black is nothing to do with "political correctness". Today's Private Eye reports that it also isn't a new story. The Daily Star and Sun both first ran it back in February 1986, followed by the Daily Mail in October of the same year. The following year Islington council took the SDP to court to stop them alleging they had removed the word black from the nursery rhyme in a party political broadcast, when they had done no such thing. According to the Eye the story came round again in 2000, this time in Birmingham, and as recently as last year, when the Mail on Sunday alleged it had happened in Aberdeen. Not a single one of the reports were based on the facts.
Here's the last paragraph in full from the Eye:
For the record, the charity Parents and Children Together, which runs the two play groups at the centre of last week's outbreak, told the Press Association that "children at the two family centres sing a variety of descriptive words in the nursery rhyme to turn the song into an action rhyme. They sing happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep etc. This encourages the children to extend their vocabulary." Curiously, this explanation went unreported by any of the national papers.The newspaper which stands for "real values" and "real value for money" seemingly doesn't consider facts or the truth to be among those values.
| Permalink
Thank you!
I've searching around for the origin of this bonkers myth for a while.
Next step... finding out what crazy person first believed that we can't say 'blackboards' anymore, for any reason other than that most schools have white dry-wipe or electronic boards, or green (easier on the eye) chalk boards these days!
Aoife
Posted by
Aoife |
Monday, September 07, 2009 11:18:00 PM
I have never seen a rainbow sheep before... can someone please tell me where i can find one??
Posted by
Leoh |
Saturday, January 16, 2010 3:38:00 PM