(no subject)

[nverland]

A Diller A Dollar

A diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar!
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o'clock;
Now you come at noon.

Origin?
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes by Iona and Peter Opie (Oxford, OUP, 1951) suggests that ‘a diller, a dollar’ are taken from the words dilatory and dullard or that maybe ‘a diller, a dollar’ is related to dilly-dally. As English schools traditionally started at nine o’clock or earlier, anyone who arrived even at ten o’clock would certainly be very late.