Les Jones

Word of the Day > Word of the Day: Ding-a-derry

In the Wizard of Oz the Scarecrow's signature song is "If I Only Had a Brain." My daughter's been watching the movie lately and there's a word in that song that's been bugging me. I thought it was "Kingadairy." Melissa thought it was "Pingadairy." I found the lyrics and discovered it's "Ding-a-derry":

I would not be just a nuffin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain
I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain

So what's a ding-a-derry? I haven't been able to find anything to suggest that it's anything but a nonsense word that fit the rhyme scheme, in much the same way as "stuffin'" was rhymed with "nuffin'." Seems like a little bit anticlimatic, doesn't it? I wanted ding-a-derry to mean something.

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