What's the provenance of the stylized S from school?

boing
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Hmmmm… I confess, I’ve taught my three year old both of these things. Was I not supposed to?

All little kids learn “ring around the rosey,” from parents, preschool teachers, whatever. It’s a natural, kid-dancing song. What two-year-old doesn’t want to hold hands, go round and round, and fall on the floor? So adults teach it. I haven’t met any two-year-old who hasn’t heard it from an adult before.

As for the floor being lava, my kid was already leaping from couch to couch. I just thought it would be good adding a game to it. (Also, she is obsessed with lava.)

Maybe people think these kinds of things are “untaught” because they were all taught before they can remember?

Or, if I wasn’t supposed to teach them and I broke the oral tradition chain, I submit myself to the clan’s mercy.

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At three my kid started in with, “I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal [but it was more like “rass-hole”]”.

No idea how that came to be.

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Of course many children will learn these things from their parents. There are beloved childhood memories associated with them. The problem is that many adults don’t remember most of them.

It’s not my contention that they are untaught things but rather something taught by other children in most cases. Perhaps today’s world of cloistered children will change that. Perhaps the isolation we now impose will bring an end to the unbroken chain. Perhaps the fear of the ‘dangerous world’ we attempt to instill children will do it.
I’ve watched as pre-school children are taught games and songs by older kids. Kick the can and hop scotch come to mind. While I’m sure that many things are taught by adults, I also know that many things are not. After all, has anyone here taught ‘playing doctor’ to their children?

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See…it was an “8” not an “S” … Class of 77 had no need for it.

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That’s where I first saw it in the late 70s. Sometime around the third grade.

Some classmate had a stylized “Styx” written on one of her books. I was really proud when I figured out how to it.

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Is it related to this in any way?

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ssss.jpg600×600 80.9 KB

Because otherwise most people F up the letter S when they try to draw it as an outline

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Class of '89 checking in. When I drew this symbol in the late 80s I always thought it was associated with “The Stones”, as in The Rolling Stones. Perhaps it was some little-known typeface used in obscure promotional materials, or maybe some indie fan art? Has anyone checked a possible link there?

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I learned how to draw this from kids in school in 3rd grade ('82-'83). It was about the same time as learning how to draw 3D boxes. I also remember drawing the S so it looked 3D. My last name started with an S so I drew this a lot! I’ve been teaching middle school for the last 9 years and haven’t seen it in the wild until this year. I’ve always assumed it was some sort of graffiti style of lettering.

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Never heard of it, is it this?
http://www.horntip.com/html/songs_sorted_by_name/minnie_the_mermaid.htm

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Styx probably drew this in school, too. I recall drawing it in class at least as far back as 1972.

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It’s the logo for Stussy, a clothing brand.

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I was drawing this S (with a rounded top and bottom) in, probably, fourth grade—'75. In suburban DC. Data point!

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Stussy dates from 1980, but my S-drawing brethren and sistren were doodling it years before that.

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Last time I saw an article about this, it was surmised that given a sheet of lined notebook paper someone who was just doodling would probably stumble upon this particular shape.
I myself drew them all the time when I was a kid in the 90s, and I don’t remember anyone teaching me how. I admit I may have see one already drawn and just copied the idea, I just don’t remember doing so. As mentioned above I was also drawing 3d boxes and other geometrical shapes at the time, the lined paper just made it easy.

As a kid I often played a version of this on the playground that involved not touching the gravel that all the wooden equipment was set into. I remember distinctly referring to this game as ‘Playing Mario’ as Super Mario World was full of deadly lava.

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Oh, wow man. That is undoubtedly the source material but the melody is a little different, the tempo is lowered into a chant, and only one line remains intact. The rest of the lyrics had been perverted, over probably many generations of hilarious and delinquent minds mutated it into the following

Here now are the lyrics as I remember them being belted out by the sweet naïfs of G.P. (girl pioneer), Fishman, Sherruth, and Berman villages (ages 9-12, I think) at the top of their god-damned lungs:

Many a night was spent with Minnie the Mermaid
down at the bottom of the sea.
[AT THE BOTTOM OF THE–]
Underneath the corals
Minnie lost her morals
Oh, but she was good to me.

A man never knows what a good girl he’s got
until he’s got 'er down
[ON THE COT!]
Well you can easily see she’s not my mother
'cause my mother’s past fourty-nine
And you can easily see she’s not my sister
‘cause my sister is so refined
And you can easily see she’s not my sweetheart
‘cause my sweetheart never showed me such a hell of a good time.
She’s just an innocent kid
she didn’t know what she did
she’s a personal friend of mine
[roll over Minnie]
It’s better on the other side
[And there was Granny]
Swingin’ from the outhouse door
[without her nightie]
Grampa’s yellin’ “More, more, more!”
[He’s over ninety]
“Harold cut your toenails, you’re ripping the sheets to shreds!”
[Doo-waaaaah]

I may be forgetting a verse but I think that’s it. I mean, I never really thought about it until later, it seemed innocent enough coming from the mouths of young girls (and i was pretty oblivious as a kid) but for the early eighties, I’m not so sure a song could get radio play with “Roll over, it’s better on the other side,” and getting her down on the cot as a litmus test. I mean, “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time” was scandalous back then, and this song was firmly established camp lore well before all that.

Of course, we were privately telling each other the dirtiest of jokes back then, too, but it just knocks me out that the Minnie song seemed to be officially sanctioned.

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You know how I know you didn’t read the article?

@roomwithaview not really, see just above

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If you want to know something that will really bake your toaster strudel, I’ve seen this at least a few times in environments (classrooms) entirely occupied by Arab schoolkids who only spoke as much English as they learned from TV and second-language classes.

I have no idea how it made it that far.

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I love how this thread has allowed me to fill in my database of when you all graduated highschool.

This thing is going to be a goldmine when I sell it to the marketers.

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You only know when I was in fourth grade. No one said I ever graduated! Joke’s on you!

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