Betty Botter

Recitation of Betty Botter tongue-twister

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Betty Botter is a tongue-twister written by Carolyn Wells.^[1]^[2] It was originally titled "The Butter Betty Bought." By the middle of the 20th century, it had become part of the Mother Goose collection of nursery rhymes.^[3]

ConstructionEdit

The construction is based on alliteration, using the repeated two-syllable pattern /'b__tə 'b__tə 'b__tə/ with a range of vowels in the first, stressed syllable. The difficulty is in clearly and consistently differentiating all the vowels from each other.

They are almost all short vowels:

/æ/ batter

/e/ better - Betty

/ɪ/ bitter - bit o'

/ɒ/ Botter

/ʌ/ butter

with one long vowel /ɔ:/ 'Bought a'

LyricsEdit

When it was first published in "The Jingle Book" in 1899 it read:^[1]

Betty Botta bought some butter;

“But,” said she, “this butter’s bitter!

If I put it in my batter

It will make my batter bitter.

But a bit o’ better butter

Will but make my batter better.”

Then she bought a bit o’ butter

Better than the bitter butter,

Made her bitter batter better.

So ’twas better Betty Botta
Bought a bit o’ better butter.

VariationsEdit

Bronte Alberts' Version:Edit

Betty Botter bought a bit of butter

But the butter was bitter
So Betty Botter bought a better bit of butter

A longer version:Edit

Betty Botter bought some butter, But, she said, The butter's bitter; If I put it in my batter It will make my batter bitter. But, a bit of better butter Will make my batter better. So, she bought a bit of butter Better than her bitter butter, And she put it in her batter And the batter was not bitter. So, 'twas better Betty Botter Bought a bit of better butter.

^[4]

ReferencesEdit

^ ^a ^b The Jingle Book, Carolyn Wells (Macmillan, New York), 1899, page 86
^ "A Book of American Humorous Verse" edited by James Whitcomb Riley, Duffield & Company, New York, 1917, page 169, in which Ms. Wells' authorship and Macmillan's original copyright is acknowledged.
^ The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes, edited by Iona and Peter Opie, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1951; page 84-85
^ http://curry.virginia.edu/go/wil/Betty_Botter_bought_some_butter.pdf

[:0-1] The Jingle Book, Carolyn Wells (Macmillan, New York), 1899, page 86

[2] "A Book of American Humorous Verse" edited by James Whitcomb Riley, Duffield & Company, New York, 1917, page 169, in which Ms. Wells' authorship and Macmillan's original copyright is acknowledged.

[3] The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes, edited by Iona and Peter Opie, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1951; page 84-85

[4] ttp://curry.virginia.edu/go/wil/Betty_Botter_bought_some_butter.pdf

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