tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post5780033822893853214..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: Jack Scott writesDuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-67499185999345739882016-12-10T03:06:30.582-08:002016-12-10T03:06:30.582-08:00The names "John/Johnny/Jane/Janie Doe" o...The names "John/Johnny/Jane/Janie Doe" or "John/Johnny/Jane/Janie Roe" (or sometimes just "Doe") are used as placeholder names for men, women, or children whose true identity is unknown (or withheld) in a legal action, police case, or discussion, or to a corpse or hospital patient, mainly in the US and Canada; a "typical" male may also be called "John Doe" or" John Q. Public." Similarly, a child whose identity is unknown may be referred to as "Baby Doe." The usage dates to the 14th century or earlier, along with other names such as "Doo," "Richard Roe," "John-a-Noakes," or "John-a-Stiles." The practice was lampooned in an 1834 song:<br />Two giants live in Britain's land,<br />John Doe and Richard Roe,<br />Who always travel hand in hand,<br />John Doe and Richard Roe.<br />Their fee-faw-fum's an ancient plan<br />To smell the purse of an Englishman,<br />And, 'ecod, they'll suck it all they can.<br />The fictional characters of John Doe and Richard Roe were abolished by the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852, though since 2005 a "John Doe Order" was issued to describe an injunction sought against someone whose identity is not known at the time it is issued, in this case when lawyers acting for JK Rowling and her publishers obtained an interim order against an unidentified person who had offered to sell chapters of a stolen copy of an unpublished "Harry Potter" novel to the media. "Joe Bloggs" or "John Smith" are the common placeholder names in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for a typical person. <br />"Fragaria" is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. They are commonly known as strawberries, though they ae not berries at all but rather fleshy, edible receptacles. What are usually called "seeds" are actually achenes (fruits that contain a single seed that almost fills the pericarl but does not adhere to it). The common name is probably derived from "strewn berry" in that the fruit is scattered about the base of the plant.<br />In 1862 Victor Hugo published the novel "Les Misérables" in which Fantine sings a song that has a refrain that ends:<br />Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,<br /> Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.<br />[Violets are blue, roses are red,<br />Violets are blue, I love my loves.]<br /><br />This was a variation on the English nursery rhyme:<br /> Roses are red,<br /> Violets are blue,<br /> Sugar is sweet,<br /> And so are you.<br />This probably evolved from "Gammer Gurton's Garland," a 1784 collection of nursery rhymes:<br />The rose is red, the violet's blue,<br /> The honey's sweet, and so are you.<br /> Thou are my love and I am thine;<br /> I drew thee to my Valentine:<br />The lot was cast and then I drew,<br /> And Fortune said it shou'd be you.<br />Which, in turn, ultimately came from Edmund Spenser's 1590 epic, "The Faerie Queene":<br />It was upon a Sommers shynie day,<br />When Titan faire his beames did display,<br /> In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,<br /> She bath'd her brest, the boyling heat t'allay;<br /> She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,<br /> And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.<br />The theme is so ubiquitous that, as a class, it has its own Roud Folk Song Index number (19798). And it is often parodied. For example, in "Horse Feathers" (written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone), Chico Marx describes the symptoms of cirrhosis:<br /> Cirrhosis are red,<br /> so violets are blue,<br /> so sugar is sweet,<br /> so so are you.<br />DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com