Winnie the Pooh turns 90 today.

[the_great_she_elephant]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/oct/14/why-winnie-the-pooh-is-still-the-best-bear-i...

If you try to talk to the bison,
he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo -
he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers
hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant
when I go down to the Zoo!

[ecar3483]

Mingo has me stumped.

An Iroquois tribe, a town in Queensland, a children's clothing store?

(Just a very quick Google...).

None of whom would shake hands, admittedly, but why are they at the zoo? Ha ha.

🙂

[ecar3483]

Happy 90th Birthday to "The best bear in all the World".

🙂

[davidc4430]

who would have thought that we would be celebrating the birthday of a 90 year old pooh?

[lurker172602]

[bright.ton42]

Now We Are Six

When I was one, I had just begun

. When I was two, I was nearly new.

When I was three, I was hardly me.

When I was four, I was not much more.

When I was five, I was just alive.

But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever.

So I think I'll be six now and forever.

[lyndal1838]

I must be very strange....I am the only person I know that never liked Pooh when I was growing up.

My children could take him or leave him too athough it was not an active dislike as I had.

[mloreason]

I love Winnie.

A couple of months ago I was reading my class a book about Winnie. It was a true story about the real Winnie who inspired the character Winnie the Pooh. In the back of the book there were photos of the real Winnie. The children (7 & 8 year olds) were absolutely fascinated with the photos. And so was their teacher. 😉

[the_great_she_elephant]

If I remember rightly the real Winnie was an orphaned bear cub adopted by some Canadian soldiers and smuggled into England by them when they were stationed there during WW! When they were later sent to France Winnie had to be  left behind at London Zoo.

(I may have got some of the details wrong, but I think that was the gist of the story.) 

[the_great_she_elephant]

---

@ecar3483 wrote:

Mingo has me stumped.

An Iroquois tribe, a town in Queensland, a children's clothing store?

(Just a very quick Google...).

None of whom would shake hands, admittedly, but why are they at the zoo? Ha ha.

🙂

---

It could possibly be short for flamingo. Milne did sometimes shorten words (and invent them too)  to make them sound like  'kiddie speak'. This is the whole poem.

There are lions and roaring tigers,
and enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons,
and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus,
and a tiny nosserus too -
But I gave buns to the elephant
when I went down to the Zoo!

There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers,
and a Super-in-tendent's House,
There are masses of goats, and a Polar,
and different kinds of mouse,
And I think there's a sort of a something
which is called a wallaboo -
But I gave buns to the elephant
when I went down to the Zoo!

If you try to talk to the bison,
he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo -
he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers
hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant
when I go down to the Zoo!