Z is for Zany

        (My theme for this year’s April A to Z Blog Challenge is traditional English language nursery rhymes, and their block printed illustrations.  It’s also not too late to check out the Master List of participating A-Z Blogs, and find more alphabetic fun.)

Z was a zany, a poor harmless fool.

        This is obviously not a full nursery rhyme.  It’s one line from an alphabet poem that is often included in nursery rhyme books, which is why I’m counting it.  It begins “A was an Archer, who shot at a frog,” and you can see one version in its entirety here.  Our single line for Z rhymes with “Y was a youth that did not love school.”  Yes, this is a very weak way to end the A-Z Challenge, but Z words just don’t seem to show up in the older nursery rhymes.  The only place we ever see a Z word is in an alphabet, and half the time even the alphabets lump X, Y, Z and & together at the end without words of their own.  Those alphabets that do give Z a proper treatment seem to have considered few options.  Many of the earlier primers, especially those from Puritan New England, use Zaccheus from the New Testament.  At least he gets  a pleasing little rhyme of his own: 

   Zaccheus he

   Did climb the tree

   His Lord to see.

One free-spirited alphabet from 1800 uses zebu, one from the 1850’s uses Zenobia “the queen of the east,” one of Walter Crane’s alphabets from 1874 uses zodiac, and a number of illustrated alphabets use the zebra you might expect.  But the most common, especially in those versions of the alphabet that include rhyming verses and thus can squeak themselves into the category of nursery rhymes, use zany.

        So what is a zany anyway?  Now that we really are at the last post of April, here’s some more Word-of-the-Month fun.
Zany as a noun, meaning a clown, comes from a Venetian dialect version of Gianni, which is a nickname for Giovanni, which is the Italian equivalent of John; thus Zany is really yet another Jack.  The character was a stock clown from the Commedia dell-arte, sometimes stupid and sometimes cunning.  Clearly by the nineteenth century in English there was no cunning left, only stupidity.  Nowadays the noun version is no longer in common use, but you’ll still encounter the word zany as an adjective meaning crazy, absurd, eccentric.  Although the adjectival form had entered English in the seventeenth century, it seems that these childrens’ alphabets still considered the noun to be in current use and a word suitable for basic nursery vocabulary.  Or at least no less suitable than zebu or Zenobia.

        Some of the letters of the alphabet, like the A shooting at, of all things, a frog, seem to hint at some sort of story, but Z gives us nothing.  There he is, just being a fool.  Perhaps he’s a friend of some of our other nursery rhyme fools, joining the wise men of Gotham in their bowl, or Simple Simon looking for plums.  I like to think that our Zany will be able to steer clear of the less pleasant letters in his alphabet, including the Drunkard, the Gamester, the Miser (of some versions), the Robber, and the Userer, and, like the crooked man, find some friends who understand him.  Which nursery rhyme character do you think would be the best friend for a Zany?

        A final note for impressionable children: Congratulations on making it to the end of the alphabet!  Learn to read, and the world can be yours.

[Pictures: Hand-colored woodcut from Pictured Alphabet published by Fisher & Brother, c 1857 (Image from University of Washington);

Hand-colored woodcut from The Ladder to Learning, Marks’ Edition, 1852 (Image from Project Gutenberg);

Wood block print from The Silver Penny, printed by J. Kendrew, 1810 (Image from Internet Archive);

Wood block print from The Royal Primer, printed for J. Newbery, c 1776 (Image from Internet Archive);

Woodcut probably by Orlando Jewitt from The Picture Alphabet published by T. Richardson, c 1834 (Image from Opie, The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book);

Hand-colored wood block print from The Funny Alphabet, published by McLoughlin Bro’s,  between 1850-1864 (Image from Internet Archive);

Hand-colored woodcut from The Hobby-Horse published by J. Harris, 1820 (Image from Opie, A Nursery Companion).]