In a gold Rolls, making it with the dumb chauffeur

[venta]

Please help me. I am suffering from extreme dwarf-related confusion.

This morning, I heard someone say "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go".

I mused that, in my world, the words which follow that are "With a shovel and a spade, and a hand grenade". And I was pretty sure that they weren't in the Disney original.

A quick straw poll drew suggestions of "With a shovel and a pick, and a walking stick" or "With a knife and fork, and a belly full of pork". Neither of those struck me as being all that likely as the original words.

So, me and google got together. And I am baffled.

The only reliable-looking sets of words I can find online don't seem to contain these lines at all. They, and the clips I've found on youtube, feataure the dwarves singing "Hi ho, hi ho, it's home from work we go" and then whistling the next couple of lines. They "dig, dig, dig with a shovel and a pick", but they never list the items they are carrying.

My first assumption was that this was just a different version of the song, which shows up later in the film. But I can't find any lyrics for, or clips of, the "off to work, with a..." version.

Is my google-fu very poor today? Has anyone seen Snow White recently? Do the dwarves, in fact, never actually sing about going off to work?

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

No, they don't sing about going to work - the scene starts with them at work in the mine, singing about their working day, and then they come home to find Snow White cleaning their cottage.

The bit after the 'hi-ho's is always whistled, which is why people seem to feel free to fit their own lyrics to it. I've always sung 'with a shovel and pick and a walking stick'.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, since you seem to implicitly allow Google, I declare the modal answer to be this: Heigh-Ho Lyrics.

This almost agrees with valkyriekaren, except that the dwarves do allegedly sing about going off to work rather than just home.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have seen lyrics online which are identical to those, and which are identical except that they say "home to work" instead of "off to work".

I have found a film clip which confirms that the "home to work" lyrics are used, but not one to confirm the other.

Accordingly, I'm going to claim that someone is wrong on the internet :)

maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing 'home from work' not 'home to work'.

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I see you've been reading XKCD as well :)

I agree, "home from work", I just typed it out wrongly earlier.

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

OK. XKCD readers here, raise one of your hands!

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

o/

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[condign.livejournal.com]

This would become the longest thread on the internets....

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what you want for that kind of thing is a poll...

Re: maybe this should be on the common misconceptions page on wikipedia? ;-)

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

Only if the entire internets is reading venta (which it might, I have no idea...)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Slightly more digging^[1] confirms valkyriekaren 1 : 0 internet!

---

[1] Pun intended, sorry!

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Dig dig dig dig dig dig dig!

[venta.livejournal.com]

digg?

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

That version has them singing about going off to work after they've already been digging in the mine the whole day through, which definitely seems wrong. And it's close enough to this that it's clearly not an earlier scene with a similar song.
Less helpfully...

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I have seen it recently, and what valkyriekaren says sounds about right, though I'm not 100% sure.

What I do know is that they're dwarfs, not dwarves. Tolkien invented the word "dwarves" (I think) and it isn't right except for his work and things inspired by his work.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. Bother. I knew about the dwarfs/dwarves thing, but thought it was exactly the other way round :(

[zotz]

It's also correct for these charming chaps, of course.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't believe I've made the acquaintance of those gentlemen. I shall investigate.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Dwarfs = pituitary dwarfism = real people
Dwarves = derived from "dwerrows", Tolkien-brain-ish (?Sindarin?Numenorian) for "people who delve deep in the ground"

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I wasn't disputing the_alchemist was correct, merely that I'd been aware of the issue when I was originally writing my post.

Y'see, I go dwarf = person, dwarf = Tolkien beastie. Now, which way round does the plural work again? English is weird, so dwarf almost certainly pluralises to dwarves, and Tolkien was being cussed by just sticking an s on the end.

I think your "dwarves = derived from dwerrows" might be a good way of remembering.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'm given to understand that it was originally a mistake on Tolkien's part, and when called on it he decided that it was to differentiate them as a species.

This may be apocryphal, though.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes that's why I said it, because it's a good way of remembering.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. Sorry. Text-based communication is hard. I misread your original comment as assuming that I needed the difference explaining. But yes, good nmemonic, thank you.

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I'd always heard that Tolkein deliberately invented the word (partly because it looks better alongside elves?)

What's I didn't know until today was that the OED has an example of "dwarves" dating back to 1818. Good link: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000293.html

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

At my school it was 'off to Spain I go, with a bucket and spade and a hand grenade'. I have no idea why.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

It might be a reference (if I wanted to read too much into it) to the people who headed off to Spain to fight in the civil war. Or it could just be a reference to fighting for beach space :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

It might be a reference to the people who headed off to Spain to fight in the civil war

huskyteer isn't *that* old, y'know ;)

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I was commenting on song derivation not age of huskyteer as you well know :-p

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

:) I think you could be right, but heaven knows how we got hold of it in the mid-80s.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Kids taking hand grenades to Spain muttered by local school kids? Sounds like your recent experiences with Pablo, Venta!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I have the Blu-Ray sitting there ----> unwrapped. I now feel a strong urge to watch it, to find out for sure. Oh dear.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Please, for the sanity of the rest of us (or at least those for whom it's not too late ...)!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

With a stick of rock and a smelly sock.

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was "With a rum-tum-tum, dum-dum-tum-tum". Boring.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

I owe, I owe, Its off to work I go, with a bucket and spade and a hand granade, I owe, I owe, I owe, I owe !

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

My version is exactly the same as yours (which might be the first time that's ever been true…)

I guess the Spain context is slightly plausible, as the film came out around the time of the war. But it is a bit convenient. But otoh I've got no idea how else a hand-grenade might have got in there.

[uitlander]

Your own version is the one I recall from the school playground.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

I recall your version, and the slight variation "With a rifle and blade, and a hand grenade", but I think that could have been from those of us who'd been playing too many war games ... [grin] Still rhymes and scans, though ...