Here at Commonplace Fun Facts, we have a soft spot for oddities and the quirky little things that make life a bit more delightful and confusing. Trust us, today’s subject is both confusing and delightful. We present to you Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, a curious little book of French nursery rhymes that might just be the most highbrow way to mess with your head since someone first called abstract art “thought-provoking.”

You might be wondering, “What in the world does Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames mean?” To answer that, we’d first like to note that it doesn’t mean anything. But, and here’s where things get interesting—say it aloud with your best French accent, and voilà: it sounds suspiciously like “Mother Goose Rhymes.” That’s right, what we have here is not some dusty, arcane French manuscript, but a collection of French gibberish painstakingly rewritten to sound like English nursery rhymes.This is where the pseudo-intellectuals among us get to feel fancy while reading about, say, a great egg-related disaster.

The author of this piece of linguistic chaos is Luis d’Antin van Rooten. In 1967, he decided that the world needed a version of “Humpty Dumpty” where every word was a confusing mishmash of French syllables, complete with faux-scholarly footnotes that are more ridiculous than helpful. The man had a genius sense of humor. Think about it: these aren’t just your childhood rhymes. These are your childhood rhymes as heard through the ears of someone who definitely skipped a few language classes but still insists on ordering everything at French restaurants with perfect pronunciation.

Unlike Pedro Carolino’s remarkable book English As She is Spoke, Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames intentionally garbles the language and is supposed to make you smile. What we have in this book is a delightful collection of nursery rhymes presented as homophonic translation.

The Humpty Dumpty Experience (Or, “Un petit d’un petit”)

Take, for example, his take on “Humpty Dumpty,” which is presented as “Un petit d’un petit / S’étonne aux Halles.” That sounds downright majestic until you try to translate it. Spoiler: It doesn’t translate, at least not in any way that makes sense. Here’s the rough idea:

“Un petit d’un petit / S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit / Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse / Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit / Tout Gai de Reguennes”

We’ll spare you the footnotes, because they, too, are designed to mystify. But, just for kicks, the “translation” into English (if you squint at it hard enough) goes something like:

“A child of a child / Is surprised at the market
A child of a child / Oh, degrees you needed!
Lazy is he who never goes out / Lazy is he who is not led
Who cares about a child of a child / Like Guy of Reguennes.”

Sounds deep, right? Maybe. But if you focus too hard, you’ll start thinking it actually makes sense, and that’s when you know van Rooten has won.

The brilliance behind this nonsense is that you’re not supposed to understand it. You’re just supposed to sit back, let the words wash over you, and revel in the fact that somehow, even if you don’t speak French, it feels like you’re deciphering a great cultural treasure.

If you’re on a Humpty Dumpty kick and want to know the true story behind it (spoiler alert: Humpty Dumpty definitely wasn’t an anthropomorphic egg), you can read all about it in this article.

Nursery Rhymes for the Faux-Bilingual

Mots d’Heures gives the same homophonic translation treatment to several nursery rhymes. Instead of “Old King Cole,” we get another French-sounding phrase that doesn’t make any more sense than the previous one, but boy, does it sound fancy! Other favorites like “Hickory Dickory Dock,” “Little Miss Muffet,” and “Jack and Jill” all undergo this nonsensical linguistic transformation. These timeless English verses become strange artifacts from a parallel French-speaking universe—one where no one really knows what they’re saying but says it with great confidence.

As added frosting on the cake, Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames goes out of its way to give us footnotes that are just as bewildering as the text itself. Imagine an academic paper explaining that the line “Indolent qui ne sort cesse” is clearly a reference to ancient market customs, only to leave you nodding along in agreement while still having absolutely no idea what’s going on.

The Tradition of Homophonic Translations

There are others who have used homophonic translations with delightful results. Consider, for example, Ormonde de Kay’s 1980 book N’Heures Souris Rames (Nursery Rhymes) to continue the tradition of English-to-French homophonic chaos.

If that wasn’t enough, someone in Germany looked at this madness and thought, “Ja, we can do this too!” Enter Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript by John Hulme. We would love to tell you more about this one, but the only copy we could find was going for $720. If any of our faithful readers wants to provide us with a copy or the funds to acquire one, we’ll gladly provide an appropriately-snarky book review at the earliest opportunity.

Anguish Languish — Because English is Just Begging to Get Mangled

We probably should devote an entire article to Howard Chance’s delightful take on homophonic translation of nursery rhymes, but we’ll try to cover it here. Anguish Languish makes fun of the overly complex English language, which can be easily mangled without a lot of effort.

The author gives an example in the introduction:

A visiting professor … who, while learning to understand spoken English, was continually bewildered and embarrassed by the similarity of such expressions as boys and girls and poisoned gulls, used to exclaim: “Gracious! What a lot of words sound like each other! If it wasn’t (sic) for the different situations in which we hear ’em, we’d have a terrible time saying which was which.” Of course, these may not have been the professor’s exact words, because he often did his exclaiming in Anguish rather than in English. In that case he would say: “Crashes! Water larders warts sunned lack itch udder! Effervescent further deferent saturations an witch way harem, wade heifer haliver tam sang witch worse witch.”

Anguish Languish uses this concept to present some classic pieces in a way that can only be understood phonetically. Take, for example, “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut”:

Wants pawn term dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

Confused? Try saying it aloud, and you hear something much more familiar: the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.” The following video gives a good illustration of Anguish Languish in action:

The Best Thing You Didn’t Know You Needed

So, what’s the point of all this? Why would anyone go to such lengths to make a book full of fake poetry? Well, for one thing, it’s intellectual humor at its finest. This is exactly the sort of thing we like to keep on hand to whip out at social gatherings because we never learned socially acceptable interpersonal interaction. Quoting some fake French may elicit strange looks, but it’s way better than standing in awkward silence while bemoaning one’s utter lack of meaningful friendships.

After all, if Humpty Dumpty can become “Un petit d’un petit,” maybe we, too, can make something grand out of the utterly nonsensical.

Bon appétit, friends.

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