Betty Botter
Betty Botter is a tongue-twister written by Carolyn Wells.[1][2] It was originally titled "The Butter Betty Bought." By the middle of the 20th century, it had become part of the Mother Goose collection of nursery rhymes.[3]
Construction
The construction is based on alliteration, using the repeated two-syllable pattern /'b__tə 'b__tə 'b__tə/ with a range of vowels in the first, stressed syllable. The difficulty is in clearly and consistently differentiating all the vowels from each other.
- They are almost all short vowels:
- /æ/ batter
- /e/ better - Betty
- /ɪ/ bitter - bit o'
- /ɒ/ Botter
- /ʌ/ butter
- with one long vowel /ɔ:/ 'Bought a'
Lyrics
When it was first published in "The Jingle Book" in 1899 it read:[1]
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter;
“But,” she said, “this butter's bitter!
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter.
But a bit o’ better butter
Will make my batter better.”
Then she bought a bit o’ butter
Better than the bitter butter,
Made her bitter batter better.
So ’twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit o’ better butter.
Variations
Bronte Alberts' version
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter
But the bit of butter Betty Botter bought was bitter
So Betty Botter bought a better bit of butter
Oscheff Fia's short version
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter
but the bit of butter was bitter so Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
to make the bit of bitter butter better.
A longer version
Betty Botter bought some butter but, she said, the butter is bitter; if I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter. But, a bit of better butter will make my batter better. So, she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and the batter was not bitter. So, 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.[4]
Another version
Betty Botter bought some butter.
But Betty Botter found her butter bitter. So Betty Botter bought some better butter. A little bit of bitter butter didn't bother Betty.
But her better butter better not be bitter![5]
There was an animated version featured on PBS Kids Television Channel, animated by Lynn Tomlinson. In this variation the rhyme is as follows:
Betty Botter bought some butter,
but the butter, it was bitter.
If she put it in her batter, it would make her batter bitter,
but a bit of better butter, that would make her batter better.
So, she bought a bit of butter, better than her bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter, and her batter was not bitter.
So, T'was better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.
References
- ^ a b "The Jingle Book by Carolyn Wells" – via www.gutenberg.org.
- ^ "A Book of American Humorous Verse" edited by James Whitcomb Riley, Duffield & Company, New York, 1917, page 169, in which Ms. Wells' authorship and Macmillan's original copyright is acknowledged.
- ^ The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes, edited by Iona and Peter Opie, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1951; page 84-85
- ^ Smolkin, Laura. "Betty Botter" (PDF). virginia.edu.
- ^ YouTube video"Betty Botter".
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Betty bought a bit of butter but she found the butter bitter so she bought a bit of better butter to make the butter butter better