Edited by Azizi Powell
This post provides excerpts from a 2007 -2009 online discussion that I and other Mudcat folk music forum members and guests participated in. The discussion was about the use of double negatives in the children's rhyme "Bazooka Bubble Gum" and in other examples of English written and verbal communication.
The Addendum to this post presents excerpts from two other online sources about the use of double negatives in English and in other languages.
The content of this post is presented for linguistic and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to Tha Heights for their performance of the official Bazooka Bubble Gum ad song, and thanks to the publisher of that YouTube video.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-chewin-gum-song-rhyme-my-mother.html for a 2013 post on "The Chewin Gum Song & Rhyme (My Mother Gave Me A Nickel)".
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EXAMPLES OF DOUBLE NEGATIVES IN A BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM RHYME THAT PREDATES THE OFFICIAL BAZOOKA AD SONG
"My mom gave me a penny
She said to buy a henny
But I didn't buy no henny
Instead, I bought BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
My mom gave me a nickel
She said to buy a pickle
But I didn't buy no pickle
Instead, I bought BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
My mom gave me a dime
She said to buy a lime
But I didn't buy no lime
Instead , I bought BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
My mom gave me a quarter
She said to buy some water
But I didn't buy no water
Instead, I bought BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
My mom gave me a dollar
She said to buy a collar
But I didn't buy no collar
Instead, I bought BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
My mom gave me a five
She said to stay alive
But I didn't stay alive
Instead, I choked on BUBBLE GUM
BAZOOKA, ZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
i learned that one in elementary school... not sure how i remembered it! have fun... whoever needs this
- i know hand games! ; December 22, 2005 [From http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/000518 - This website is no longer available.]
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EXAMPLES OF DOUBLE NEGATIVE IN THE OFFICIAL BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM SONG (2006 Advertising campaign)
Bazooka Bubble Gum Song Official Music Video
Ana Lages Published on Apr 15, 2011
-snip-
LYRICS: BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM
(as sung by Tha Heights)
Awwww yeah!
Yo, my Moms!
She gave me a dollar
She told me to buy a collar
but i aint buy no collar
Instead I bought some
(Chorus)
Bubble Gum
Bazooka-zooka BubbleGum
Bazooka-zooka BubbleGum
My Moms!
She gave me a quarter
She told me to take the porter
But I aint take no porter
I bought some
(Chorus)
Yo, my Moms!
She gave me a dime
She told me to buy a lime
But I aint buy no lime
Instead I bought some
(Chorus)
my Moms!
She gave me a nickel
she told me to buy a pickle
But I aint buy no pickle
Instead I bought some
(Chorus)
-Tha Heights
-snip-
This song was transcribed by Azizi Powell from the video given above. Corrections & additions are welcome.
-snip-
Here's an excerpt of a brandweek.com article about the Bazooka Bubblegum Company's ad campaign
From "Bazooka Relaunches With Bubblegum Song" By Sandra O'Loughlin, August 15, 2006 [The link that was given no longer leads to that article.]
"NEW YORK -- Topps' Bazooka Bubble Gum this week launched a global ad campaign that it hopes will stick in everyone's head. The campaign, via Duval Guillaume, New York, includes TV, online and a viral marketing effort that plays up a song and music video by Brooklyn-based music group Tha Heights.
The Bazooka Bubblegum Song and Dance is the center of five 15-second commercials in which people indicate their strong desire for the gum. One spot takes place on a baseball diamond where an umpire calls out, "Strike three!" After the batter argues with the call, the ump begins the rhyme, "Listen Kid, I said it was a strike, why don't you take a hike!" The batter responds with, "But I don't want no strike. All I want is bubblegum. Bazooka-Zooka Bubblegum."
"We want kids to make their own rhymes," said Helen Jackers, account director, which they can do by visiting www.bazookajoe.com to download the ads, play the music video, learn the dance and send in their own versions of the song...
"The Bazooka Bubblegum song has been sung at summer camps for years and years and was never really picked up by a big audience," said Tom Van Daele, creative director, in a statement. "Ever since we started to work on this catchy tune, it's been stuck in our heads."
The ads are set to run on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Nick at Nite and ABC Family for the next six weeks"."...
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EXCERPTS FROM MUDCAT DISCUSSION THREAD ABOUT DOUBLE NEGATIVES
Pancocojams Editor's Note: These comments are numbered for referencing purposes only without any spelling corrections. Examples of "Bazooka Bubble Gum"/Chewing Gum" rhymes are also included in that discussion thread.
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=102593
1. Subject: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:46 AM
"The children's rhyme "Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum" serves as an interesting case study of a children's camp song or rhyme that has its source in a pop song that may or may come from an earlier folk song.
What makes this rhyme so interesting to me is that it appears that an earlier kid's version of this song was appropriated by a corporate entity {Bazooka Bubble Gum} and used as a marketing tool for its brand name bubble gum. However, the kids' version {learned at summer camps, school yards, and elsewhere} appears to have prevailed or at least be fondly remembered by adults of certain ages.
Enter the same corporate entity in 2006 with a new marketing campaign to revive the brand name "Bazooka Bubble Gum". Will kids use the official version of this rhyme with its sappy, bland ending?
Or will they choose to sing the song their own way with its quirky somewhat counter-culture ending of choking on Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum? Inquiring minds want to know.
Inquiring minds {or my mind anyway} would also love to know who remembers this rhyme and when they remember it. I'd also like to know when [what year or decade] the rhyme changed from "I'm crazy about chewing gum" {or "bubble gum" or "choo'n gum"} to focus on the brand name "Bazooka Bubble Gum". Furthermore, I'm wondering why the corporate powers that be lashed on to a children's rhyme that uses AAVE {African American Vernacular English, otherwise known as "Black English" and "Ebonics" to market their product. I'm specifically referring to the line "I don't want no ____. I want Bazooka Zooka Bubblegum". For instance, one of the company's tv commercials had these lines "We don't want no Kumbaya. We want Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum"."
And finally {yeah, right} I'm interested in identifying other children's songs or children's rhymes {or adult songs?} in addition to "Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum" that include the line "my mother gave me a nickel/to buy a pickle".
Why? Well, why not? Being song & rhyme detectives can be an enjoyable pastime. And information gleaned from this type of research can shed light on the lifestyles, values, hopes, and concerns of populations of children, youth, and adults."...
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2. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 02:50 PM
Azizi,
I'm not sure the "double negative" "I didn't buy no ____" is only part of AAVE. I was raised in a predominantly white area (less than 4% African-Americans) and educated in segregated schools (I was born in 1946) until the ninth grade of high school. Yet, I remember being drilled in avoiding double negatives. I believe I and my classmates were quite apt to use double negatives like "I didn't buy no...".
I remember Bazooka Bubble Gum, but I do not remember the song or the manufacturer's advertising.
Roger in Baltimore (which is not where I grew up).
-snip-
"AAVE" = African American Vernacular English
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3. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:59 AM
Roger in Baltimore,
I've just read your post from July 2008 about double negatives {as in this example posted above "my mom gave me some gold, she said im pretty old but i didnt want no gold"...
I agree with you that this grammatical construct is not just used by African Americans. While "negative concords" {more commonly known as "double negation" are often cited as a characteristic of African American Vernacular English {AAVE}, it is also a feature of nonstandard [non-African] American English.
However, I want to point out the possibility that at least one source for using double negatives could come from African languages where that usage isn't grammatically incorrect. To quote one sentence of this article on African American Vernacular English:
"It has been suggested that AAVE has grammatical structures in common with West African languages or even that AAVE is best described as an African based language with English words".
While, I don't know enough about the subject of African American vernacular English, it is interesting to read about the possibility of West African sources for not just various words that have entered the English language, but also for various grammatical features.
-snip-
The words "this article" is a hyperlink to the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English
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4. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 10:35 AM
I am fairly certain, though I'm not sure that this can be proved, that the interpretation of a double negative as the negation of the negative is a feature of standardized languages and "educated" speech and is not part of colloquial speech in most if not all languages. I must admit that I don't know much about non-Indo-European languages.
Whereas conventional wisdom has it that standardized language is "real" language and colloquial speech and dialects are somehow suspect, it is very nearly the other way around: "real" language is what people actually speak, which is not to say that standardized language isn't useful.
Wherever I have run across it, it is always meant as intensifying the negation rather than negating it. In some languages it is even the standard form of negation. For example, "nit keyn" ("not no") is a normal kind of negation in Yiddish. This may be from the influence of Slavic languages, where, I believe, the double negative is also used for negation. However, it was a long time ago when I took a class in Russian, so I might be wrong about this.
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5. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 10:53 AM
Both Chaucer and Shakespeare used the double negative as an intensifier so while grammarians and educators may discourage such usage we can contend that it's long been a part of colloqial English. The construction didn't have to be brought in from other languages as it was already there from the start.
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6. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 01:24 PM
Thanks!
I appreciate the information about double negatives.
It's interesting to learn that double negatives were an accepted grammatically feature and may still be a grammatically, correct feature of Indo-European languages and other languages, including some African languages.
Still, I think that most people would agree that it's best not to use double negatives in academic and other formal English communication.
In the same token, it shouldn't be acceptable to chew Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum during formal occassions, such as weddings. But that doesn't stop some people from doing it.
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7. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:15 AM
Azizi wrote:
"It's interesting to learn that double negatives were an accepted grammatically feature and may still be a grammatically, correct feature of Indo-European languages and other languages, including some African languages."
"Correct" is a problem when talking about language. Who gets to decide? The main object of the study of language is language as its really spoken, not standardized language, though there are people who study other aspects of language, including the latter. For medieval languages, which is what I specialized lo these many years ago, there was no spoken language to study, of course.
One distinguishes between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" grammar. It's relatively easy to make prescriptive rules for a standard version of a language, but it is impossible to make up a set of rules that completely describes a real spoken language. For one thing, one would have to account for regional dialects and even idiolects, i.e., the versions of a language spoken by individual people.
I could go on about this (and on and on), but I need to start work.
I remember Bazooka bubble gum, which I mostly bought for the sake of the little Bazooka Joe comics. I grew up in a northern suburb of Chicago and was born in 1963. I never heard of the song before and don't remember ever seeing or hearing and radio or TV advertising for Bazooka bubble gum. I don't remember if there were billboards, newspaper ads, or anything like that.
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8. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:49 AM
I think Azizi is right to decry the use in formal language. It can be ambiguous and the idea of formal language is clarity.
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9. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 06:46 AM
I'm not by any means suggesting that schoolteachers start accepting "not no", "ain't no", etc., in pupils' homework or denying that standardized language has its rightful place in the scheme of things. In fact, I think the standardizers have become a little too lax and also trendy in recent years, viz. the debacle of the so-called "orthographical reform" in Germany, where I live (don't get me started).
However (and this is a big however), language as it's really spoken by real people is the real thing and standardized language is an artificial construct. There is the additional problem of people speaking in an "unnatural" way for reasons of fashion, but that's another kettle of fish. Dialect speakers are still looked down upon and standard language is still generally considered to be "superior" in some way. From the point of linguistics, it is not.
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10. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:28 AM
Who would have thought that a thread about bubblegum would spark such interesting comments about linguistics. This goes to show that just about anything is possible on Mudcat threads.
I'm just sayin...
[Which is a colloquial expression which means I'm implying more than I'm saying-or writing].
But-to use a hip-hop saying-it's all good.
In reference to my first sentence in this post, the hip hop saying "It's all good" means that I'm not going to "get on a set" {get annoyed or get angry} because folks have gone on off on a tangent and aren't providing examples from this family of children's rhymes or from related families of children's rhymes.
Not that it matters a hill of beans {or a pack of Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum} what I think about what comments other people post on this Mudcat thread or any other Mudcat thread...
;o)
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11. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:53 AM
I just read this entire thread again and realized that I had mentioned African American Vernacular English and double negatives and mainstream English in my first post. So I guess posts about linguistics really aren't that tangental or aren't tangental at all.
I now formally apologize to Piers Plowman [I love your name btw] and others for implying that your interesting comments about linguistics were off topic.
The sad thing is that because these comments are posted to [in?] a children's rhyme thread, folks who might want to read about and/or discuss these linguistic features won't be able to find them.
Does anyone want to start a thread on this subject?
I'd do it but I've little energy to post on threads nowadays let along start threads. But if someone did start a thread on the aspects of linguistics that have been discussed so far in this thread, I would participate in that discussion.
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12. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:31 AM
Azizi wrote:
"I now formally apologize to Piers Plowman [I love your name btw] and others for implying that your interesting comments about linguistics were off topic."
Don't worry, I'm not that sensitive. I've never been that bothered about threads going off-topic, here or elsewhere.
I chose the name "Piers Plowman" over on a message board for the British radio soap opera "The Archers", where something vaguely agricultural would be suitable. Since I was shamelessly plugging some things I posted over there when I first came here (having found out about Mudcat from other posters over there when I asked something about the song "English Country Gardens"), I thought I might as well keep the name.
I've never actually read "Piers Plowman", although I discovered I have it paperback, when I was going through my cartons of books some months ago.
For what it's worth, I don't think folklore can be separated from language and perhaps it serves some useful purpose to clear up misconceptions about language, though what one considers a misconception depends on one's point of view, of course.
Children's rhymes are hardly my area of expertise and I'd never heard of this family of rhymes. I would have just assumed that the brand of bubble gum had been there first.
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13. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:36 PM
"I think Azizi is right to decry the use in formal language. It can be ambiguous and the idea of formal language is clarity. "
I disagree firmly. Very few people, when confronted with a statement like "I didn't buy no bubblegum", are honestly confused about what that statement means.
Furthermore, your premise is entirely flawed. Formal can be - and frequently *is* - used in a deliberate attempt to confuse others. Think of bureaucratic doubletalk! There is nothing inherent to standard English that makes it more or less confusing than other registers and dialects of the language. Some parts of AAVE are even clearer or simpler than their equivalents in Standard American English, in fact, such as the habitual use of the verb "be", much decried though it is among prescriptivists.
The only reason the standard is the standard is because it's spoken by the people who, well, make the standards - the people in power. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a good idea to know the standard so you can speak it when necessary, but there's no reason to call it more correct than other forms of English, any more than my version of Barbara Allen is "more correct" than your version. You use the right tool (or dialect, or song) for the right moment, and your life is richer for it in the end, of course.
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14. Subject: RE: Bazooka Zooka Bubble Gum
From: Azizi
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 11:14 PM
GUEST Date: 10 Mar 09 - 10:36 PM, first let me say that I hope that your post isn't deleted because Mudcat has a relatively new policy of deleting comments of Guest posters who don't add another name with that Guest title.
Guest, I appreciate your comments, but I still don't think this thread is the appropriate one for an indepth discussion about linguistics. That said, let me note for the record that I agree with these points that you made:
1. Some parts of AAVE [African American Vernacular English] are even clearer or simpler than their equivalents in Standard American English.
2. The only reason the standard is the standard is because it's spoken by the people who, well, make the standards - the people in power. Nothing more, nothing less.
3. It's a good idea to know the standard so you can speak it when necessary, but there's no reason to call it more correct than other forms of English...
4. You use the right tool (or dialect, or song) for the right moment, and your life is richer for it in the end, of course.
-snip-
With regard to point 4, I still believe that a double negative should not be used in formal conversations/writings."...
-snip-
This was the end of that linguistic discussion in that thread. To my knowledge, no thread on double negatives was started on Mudcat.
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ADDENDUM: EXCERPTS FROM TWO ARTICLES ABOUT DOUBLE NEGATIVES
These excerpts are given in no particular order.
Excerpt #1:
From https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/grammar-myths-3/
What is a double negative?
Is there a specific grammatical slip that’s guaranteed to make you wince? I bet there is! While it’s hard to say why certain linguistic errors cause our hackles to rise rather than others, everyone has their own bête noire. You could split your infinitives till kingdom come and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but whenever I hear something like:
I don’t know nothing about computers.
OR
It won’t do you no good.
I cringe and have to restrain a nitpicking urge to say, ‘two negatives make a positive: do you really mean that you know something about computers?’. However, as a Rolling Stones fan, I don’t come over all grammatically correct about ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. It’s completely illogical, I admit.
[...]
The perspective from the past and elsewhere on the double negative
Any linguists out there will be aware that in some languages (for example, Spanish, Portuguese, and French), double negatives are grammatically acceptable: rather than cancel each other out, they serve to strengthen the negative idea. Students of English language and literature will also know that, had you lived in England up to the 17th century, you’d also have been doubling your negatives with gay abandon and not incurring the wrath of the grammar police. The works of Chaucer and Shakespeare contain many examples of double and even multiple negatives:
Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous. (Chaucer, ‘The Friar’s Tale’)
I never was nor never will be. (Shakespeare, Richard III)
After the 17th century, certain writers attempted to make English spelling and grammar more systematic, and relate the rules of language to those of logic. The Oxford English Dictionary records that in 1775, Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar stated:
Two Negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an Affirmative.
This edict had an impressive staying power and remains the case today. Double negatives, when used to express a negative idea, aren’t acceptable in standard English and you should avoid them in all but very informal situations (or when singing along to pop songs).
It’s not unusual….singing the praises of some double negatives
Here’s where things are less clear cut: there’s a second type of double negative that’s considered correct. In this category, two negatives are used in the same sentence or clause to express a positive idea rather than a negative one. For instance, in the sentence:
Blake was not unaware of his appearance.
Other rhetorically positive and grammatically acceptable examples are:
When I look back I don’t regret not going to school.
[meaning: I’m glad that I didn’t go to school]
We can’t just do nothing in the face of this mounting threat.
[meaning: we must take some action to combat this threat]
I couldn’t not help him.
[meaning: I strongly felt I should help him]
If you really fret about linguistic issues, this means that in some cases you can sing along to pop songs containing double negatives and stay on the grammatically acceptable side of the tracks, as in the 1965 hit ‘It’s Not Unusual‘, recorded by the Welsh singer, Tom Jones. It’s a not inelegant way of expressing the fact that being in love is very usual indeed. Yay!"
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Excerpt #2:
From https://www.grammarly.com/blog/3-things-you-must-know-about-double-negatives/
"Learning standard English negation is difficult because many languages and some English dialects use double negatives conventionally.
Though it’s easy to assume that double negatives are simply unnatural aberrations, this assumption is wrong. In many languages worldwide, it is grammatically incorrect to use anything but the double negative! (This is called negative concord.)
No hay ningun problema. (Spanish) “There isn’t no problem.” meaning “There isn’t a problem.”
Я не хочу нічого їсти. (Ya ne hochu nichogo yisty.) (Ukrainian) “I don’t want nothing to eat.” meaning “I don’t want to eat anything.”
To make it more complicated, it’s not just foreign languages that conventionally employ double negatives but some dialects of English do as well! African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Southern American English, and some British regional forms use negative concord constructions. Negative concord is even used several times in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. (For example, a line about the Friar, “Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous,” literally means “there wasn’t no man nowhere as virtuous.”)
So, while double negatives are not correct in standard English, that doesn’t make them any less useful in other dialects. We encourage writers to learn how to negate sentences using the standard grammar — especially for professional settings — but we love the diversity of English (and language in general) and think that use of dialectal grammar is fine in open, less formal environments."
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