Even given snopes, I don't know how "secret" some of these are.

Good on you, davbob. While reading the article, I kept saying to myself, "says who?", "cite, please?", and "where are your references?"

Then I got to the end, and saw this:

A-ha! It's not news, it's an advertisement. It's a promotion for a book. Would I find creditable sources for these claims in the book? I don't know… looks like I'll have to buy it (or at least get get myself into the bookstore) to find out.

This sort of article is not news; it's marketing. While amusing to read, in terms of verifiable information it's unfortunately worthless.

Nursery rhymes are 100's and 100's and 100's of years old. Often times we don't even know how old they are. They were not written down in the beginning. They were repeated orally and spread from village to village to town to city often changing along the way.

It is common knowledge that nursery rhymes have no definitive meaning or origin. They couldn't have considering their history.

Heck people argue about the "meaning" behind even current songs.

This sort of thing is meant to be entertaining and interesting to read. It isn't a doctoral thesis.

Isn't that where the word 'theory' comes in handy? They didn't say it was definite, they suggested a few theories.

The Humpty Dumpty one is definately right; Stephen Fry said so.

Okay, but that doesn't satisfy the question "whose theory(/ies)?"

But letting that go, I still maintain that while the superficial purpose of the article is simple entertainment -- and there's nothing wrong with that at all -- ultimately the purpose this 'article' serves is to make readers aware of the existence of this book, and to suggest the entertainment potential to be realized by buying it.

From this I infer (and it may be only my opinion, but it is an opinion, onto which I hold, which is the opinion that belongs to me, being mine) that aside from simple entertainment, the whole piece is little more than a veiled advertisement.

There's nothing wrong with marketing (okay, maybe there is: marketers are evil, yadayadayada) But in this case, it's all just fun. Just don't ask me to call it "news", y'know?

I remember seeing that on YouTube a while back. Well, moral imperative dictates one must upvote for Stephen Fryness, of course. (However, one then does wonder if the research staff at Qi referenced the same "sources" as Deborah Collcutt, the journalist, or Albert Jack, the author) ;p