Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear

DESCRIPTION: "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1966 (Keystone Folklore Quarterly, according to Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes)
KEYWORDS: animal hair wordplay
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #149, "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear" (1 text)
Roud #25473
NOTES [93 words]: This is well enough known that even I remember it from childhood, but it is rarely collected. Possibly this is because Fuzzy Wuzzy was a slur used for Blacks; Kipling infamously used it in the Barrack Room Ballads -- although with more respect than the typical colonial soldier used. I can only say that no one freighted "Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear" with any such meaning when I was young; "Fuzzy Wuzzy" seemed a perfectly logical name for a stuffed animal bear that had had the fur worn off. The whole point was the wordplay. And yet the words remain offensive....
Last updated in version 6.5
File: AJRR149

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