First Lieutenant He Was So Neat, The

DESCRIPTION: Counting-out rhyme? "The first lieutenant was so neat, He stopped the battle to wash his feet."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1946 (Withers-EenieMeenieMinieMo)
KEYWORDS: soldier | washing feet
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Withers-EenieMeenieMinieMo, p. 44, "(The first lieutenant he was so neat)" (1 text)
NOTES [92 words]: The drawing in Withers-EenieMeenieMinieMo presents this as a rhyme about an infantry lieutenant, but I wonder. First lieutenant was an army rank, but a pretty lowly one; he couldn't give orders to anything much larger than a platoon. By contrast, the navy did not have a rank "first lieutenant," but used it as a title for an officer who was typically the second-in-command of a ship -- senior enough that he could give orders to the whole ship. So I suspect that, if this is actually military at all (dubious), it is a naval not an infantry rhyme. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: WEMM044A

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