Thursday, October 06, 2005

Wrong nursery rhyme!

Mother Hubbard's accident problem
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

Children growing up in large families are more likely to be injured in a preventible accident and to arrive later at an urgent care center or emergency room for treatment.

Jerusalem researchers who studied this "Mother Hubbard" syndrome, in which parents have "so many children they don't know what to do,"....

Note to researchers: If you're looking for a clever, media-friendly name for your new syndrome, first make sure you're citing the right nursery rhyme!

Compare:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone.
But when she got there
The cupboard was there
And so the poor dog had none.


versus:
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children
She didn't know what to do.

With a mistake like that, they expect people to take their research seriously?

2 comments:

Yaakov Kirschen said...

I'm embarrassed!
I read the Mother Hubbard piece in the Jerusalem Post with my morning coffee, on my front porch in Herzliya Pituah, Israel.
I TOTALLY missed the mistake.
Thanx for giving me a smile.
Even at the expense of a colleague.
Yaakov DryBones Kirschen

Zman Biur said...

If it's any consolation, I assume the mistake was that of the scientists, not the reporter.