"The hair of my chin" is the beard, for a long time an important symbol of maleness in Christianity, and still one in [eg.] Islam and Sikhism. The phrase "by my beard" was a mild oath used by Shakespeare among others [cf. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 1], implying that the speaker would rather emasculate his chin than fail to live up to his promise. Here "hair of my chin" is used because it rhymes with "in", and padded with three extra syllables to make it fit the meter.
The odd part is that pigs do not have much in the way of a beard, but perhaps that only serves to make the rhyme more memorable. Another possibility is that the pig was speaking Japanese, in which case the phrase takes on a rather different meaning...
A nodeshell rescue! w00t!
Allow me to elaborate on gn0sis's writeup above.
Never.
NEVER.
Never use this phrase in Japan. In fact, skip The Three Little Pigs altogether, everywhere in Asia, just to be on the safe side.
This is doubly true if you're teaching English to a group of Japanese 8-year-olds. I'll cut to the chase here. You see, in Japanese, the word "chinchin", or "chinko", is baby-talk for "penis", along the lines of "dick", "willie", "dinkie", or, as gn0sis suggests, "weewee".
Many Japanese people already know the word "hair" as it exists in many product names. So, as the pigs defiantly [and, invariably, nakedly] taunt the wolf, the kids will hear this:
garbagegarbagegarbageHAIRgarbagegarbagePEENIE PENIS.
In fact, this is probably what any Japanese adults who are supervising you will hear as well. If you live in a small town, pretty much everyone will now know you as "that foreign guy who told our kids about pubic hair." Your chances of continued employment as an already suspicious English teacher will be even slimmer than before.
Sách nói: The Three Little Pigs - Ba chú heo con Story length: 8 minutes Read by: Chuck Brown [Nhấp vào biểu tượng phụ đề và chọn Tiếng Anh để xem phụ đề tiếng Anh nhé !] O nce upon a time there was an old Sow with three little Pigs, and since she did not have enough to give them to eat, she sent them out on their own to seek their fortune. The first little pig that went off met a Man with a bundle of straw, and said to him, “Please, sir, give me that straw so I can build myself a house” ; which the Man did, and the little Pig built a house with it. Then along came a Wolf, who knocked at the door, and said, “Little Pig, little Pig, let me come in.” To which the Pig answered, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin
Sách nói: The Three Little Pigs - Ba chú heo con
Story length: 8 minutes
Read by: Chuck Brown
[Nhấp vào biểu tượng phụ đề và chọn Tiếng Anh để xem phụ đề tiếng Anh nhé!]
Once upon a time there was an old Sow with three little Pigs, and since she did not have enough to give them to eat, she sent them out on their own to seek their fortune.
The first little pig that went off met a Man with a bundle of straw, and said to him, “Please, sir, give me that straw so I can build myself a house”; which the Man did, and the little Pig built a house with it.
Then along came a Wolf, who knocked at the door, and said, “Little Pig, little Pig, let me come in.”
To which the Pig answered, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”
“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” said the Wolf. So he huffed and he puffed, and he blew his house in, and the Wolf ate up the first little Pig.
Now the second little Pig met a Man with a bundle of shrubs, and said, “Please, sir…give me those shrubs so I can build myself a house”; which the Man did, and the Pig built his house.
Then along came that same Wolf and he said, “Little Pig, little Pig, let me come in.”
“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”
“Then I’ll puff and I’ll huff, and I’ll blow your house in!” So he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and he huffed, and at last he blew the house down, and ate up the second little Pig.
Now the third little Pig met a Man with a load of bricks, and said, “Please, sir, give me those bricks to build a house with”; so the Man gave him the bricks, and he built his house with them.
So the Wolf came, as he did to the other little Pigs, and said, “Little Pig, little Pig, let me come in.”
“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”
“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.”
Well, he huffed and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and he huffed; but he could not get the house to fall down. When he found that he could not, with all his huffing and puffing, blow the house down, he said, “Little Pig, I know where there is a nice field of turnips.”
“Where?” said the little Pig.
“Oh, in Mr. Smith’s home-field; and if you’ll be ready tomorrow morning, I will call for you, and we will go together and get some for dinner.”
“Very well,” said the little Pig, “I will be ready. What time do you mean to go?”
“Oh, at six o’clock.”
Well, the little Pig got up at five, and went and found the field, got the turnips and was home again before six. When the Wolf came he said, “Little Pig, are you ready?”
“Ready!” said the little Pig, “I have already been to the field and come back again, and I got myself a nice pot-full of turnips for dinner.”
When he heard this, the Wolf felt very angry…but he thought he could outsmart the little Pig somehow or other; so he said, “Little Pig, I know where there is a nice apple-tree.”
“Where?” said the Pig.
“Down at Merry-garden,” replied the Wolf; “and if you will not deceive me I will come for you, at five o’clock tomorrow, and we will go together and get some apples.”
Well, the little Pig woke at four the next morning, and got up in hurry, and went off for the apples, hoping to get back before the Wolf came. But he had farther to go, and he had to climb the tree…so that, just as he was coming down from it, he saw the Wolf coming [which, as you may suppose, frightened him very much]. When the Wolf came up he said, “Little Pig! What…are you here before me once again? Are they nice apples?”
“Oh yes, very!” said the little Pig; “I will throw you down one.” And he threw it so far that, while the Wolf was gone to pick it up, the little Pig jumped down and ran home.
Well, the next day the Wolf came once again, and said to the little Pig, “Little Pig, there is a Fair in the Town this afternoon: would you like you go?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Pig, “I will go; what time should I be ready?”
“At three,” said the Wolf.
So, as he had done before, the little Pig went off before the time they had discussed. He got to the Fair, bought a butter churn, and was on his way home with it when he saw the Wolf coming. He did not know what to do. So he got into the churn to hide, and in doing so it got turned around, and then… it began to roll, and it rolled down the hill with the Pig inside it, which frightened the Wolf so much that he ran home without going to the Fair.
After awhile, the Wolf went to the little Pig’s house, and told him all about how frightened he had been by a great round thing which came down the hill past him.
Then the little Pig said, “Haha! I frightened you, did I? I had been to the Fair and bought a butter churn, and when I saw you I got into it, and rolled down the hill.”
Then the Wolf was very angry indeed, and he declared that he would eat up the little Pig, and that, in fact…right now…he was going to come down the chimney after him!
When the little Pig understood the Wolf’s plans, he hung up a pot full of water, made a blazing fire in the fireplace, and, just as the Wolf was coming down the chimney, he took the cover off the pot, and in fell the Wolf. And the little Pig put the cover back on again in an instant, boiled him up, ate him for supper, and lived happy ever after.
The End.
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