ID: 20
Date: 1920s - 2006
Title: I went to the pictures
Gender: Male and Female 
Classification: Tangle talk 
Rhyme: 

I went to the pictures tomorrow, 
I took a front seat at the back,
I fell from the floor to the ceiling,
And hurt a front bone in my back.
A lady gave me a biscuit,
I ate it and gave it back.
I walked all the way home in a taxi
And saw a dead donkey die.
I picked up a stone that was too heavy 
And hit the poor thing in the eye.

(Ashburton, 1950s)

--

Yesterday at three o'clock in the morning,
An empty house full of furniture caught alight.
The fire brigade came and put it out before it started,
Ran over a dead cat and half killed it.
Two naked men came running down the stairs,
With their hands in their pockets.
Two dead men went to hospital all right.

(NZ, 1920-1950 (Sutton-Smith, 1959:103))

--

I went to the pictures tomorrow,
I got a front row seat at the back.
I bought an ice cream 
With a cherry on the bottom.
I ate it and gave it back.

(Ashburton, 2006)

--
 
Background Info: Tangle talk is the deliberate juxtaposition of incongruities. (Opie 1967:25)

==

See also rhymes in this collection beginning: "Not last night but the night before" , "One fine day" and "Ladies and Jellyspoons".

==

Factor, 1988:181, comments about the "complex mismatching of meaning, duplication of sound and maintenance of a number of rhythms" found in such rhymes. 

Ladies and jellyspoons,
I come before you 
To stand behind you
To tell you something
I know nothing about.
On Monday 
Which is Good Friday
There will be a mothers' meeting
For fathers only.
Admission is free
Pay at the door,
Bring your own seats 
And sit on the floor.

==
 
Keywords: logical nonsense, tangle talk 
Location: NZ 
Group size: 2 
Incidence: 3