nursery rhyme Jack

Behind the scenes, we are quietly making lists of potential baby names.  Jack’s parents did a great job choosing his name.  They managed to pick a familiar classic at the absolute nadir of it’s popularity, in the 1980’s. 




Aside from the easy spelling and familiarity of the name Jack, I get quite a kick out of the frequent use of the name in popular culture.

Lately, as Jack has been hard at work on modeling our house, I’ve been thinking of the nursery rhyme “This is the house that Jack built” which prepends one line per stanza to come up with this catchy ending:

This is the farmer sowing his corn
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn
That married the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built!

The rhyme is old enough (1600’s) to have uncertain authorship and to become a commonly used phrase in English.  Fun fact -  “The house that Jack built” is the title of songs by both Aretha Franklin and Metallica.
Jack appears in several other nursery rhymes, as well.  I admit that Jack Sprat and his wife cross my mind from time to time, though currently I’ll cite pregnancy in that discussion.  

Lastly, here’s a picture of Jack with a bean stock that we harvested in Piedmont, Italy.