Piggy with a house

[owlfish]

For my own edification in the ways of foreign childrens' songs, I went to the local library baby and toddler singalong today. Fifty percent of the songs were unfamiliar to me. For another quarter, I knew the words, but not the tunes to which they were being sung.

And then there were moments like this, when what is probably - I hypothesize - a usual British Englishism I've been hearing for years stood out like a metaphorical sore thumb in what was an otherwise familiar sequence.

[Poll #1869024]

Comments

[owlfish]

I was raised in the US with "stayed home". Today at the library in the UK, it was "stayed at home".

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't expect the difference to be regional - it's just a case of slowly-disappearing datives. Somewhere in that singer's song-handing-down past, someone's thought "hang on, that needs a preposition!"