Talk:On the Ning Nang Nong

On the Ning Nang Nong has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: October 28, 2025. (Reviewed version).

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I see from the article's history that there was a bit of an edit war over an extra (12th?) line being added and removed from the text of the poem. This stopped being a problem when the poem's text was removed for copyvio. Unfortunately this extra line is still there in the rhyme scheme, so I'm going to be bold and remove it, to match the text in the two references given (and I believe, the original text in Silly Verse For Kids).

I think it's pretty clear that the line doesn't belong there... The first half of the poem has lines in groups of 3, and the second half has lines in pairs (not a mixture of the two). But if anyone has a reference for a *printed* version with the extra line, please add a comment on that. --82.25.111.182 (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:On the Ning Nang Nong/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Shapeyness (talk · contribs) 14:42, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: LEvalyn (talk · contribs) 00:44, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will take on this review! I typically prefer to make smallish prose edits myself and onlyplace comments here when I have questions, though of course as always you should feel free to change or discuss any edits you happen to disagree with. Looking forward to it! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:44, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's looking good, with just two concerns to address! Thanks for a fun article! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review LEvalyn! I'll try to get to these soon Shapeyness (talk) 19:56, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Comments

Notes

• The article is unillustrated, but I don't think any suitable free images exist.. the book's cover wouldn't be fair use here, and there are no free images of the author. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:44, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I made a few very small copyedits and otherwise the prose is very polished. I'm marking the prose section as "on hold", though, because there were two places (discussed below) where I felt like the article wasn't fully clear due to a lack of context. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• For a relatively short article on a short poem, there is an admirable breadth here. Well done finding so many scholarly sources. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I spot checked [4] (Rod McGillis), [12] (Carpenter), and [19] (Miekle); all verify without copyvio or close paraphrase. Overall I have no concerns about the sourcing. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Optionally, I think you could use something of this from McGillis to add to the bit about nonsense poetry: "Debra likes this poem because it overturns her sense of reality: "cows really say 'moo' and not 'bong'." Children like the unexpected; they like the breaking of boundaries." ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Not sure if this is what you had in mind but I extended the sentence from McGillis, let me know if you though a bit more being added would be useful. Shapeyness (talk) 19:57, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I like it! Thanks for being game to keep expanding. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:03, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Similarly, it might be nice to spell out from the Humphrey source that he was physically separated from his children, in Australia, while his wife had separated from him and claimed custody. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I believe he was only physically separated once the poems had all already been written (although I could very much be wrong) since the book was finished by the time he left for Australia. I did add that he was worried he would be separated from his children though. Shapeyness (talk) 19:59, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh, you're quite right! Looking again, the biography is quite clear that the proofs were ready by the time he arrived in Australia in April/May 1959! I usually work on 18thC books which were typically published within a month of being written, so I just assumed all the info about the summer and fall of 1959 was when he was writing his book that came out that December... my mistake. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:02, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • And it might be interesting to note, from the Miekle article, that the poem was actually #2 in the top 10. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It is listed second, although I don't know if the poems are listed in order (they probably are, but I don't think any of the sources say so, including the Ofsted report). Shapeyness (talk) 20:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh, fair point! Better not to make that assumption, then. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Earwig has a few matches on two sentences, but I think this is a case where Wikipedia came first and these other sites copied from an earlier version of the article. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions / questions

• It feels silly to ask for a better synopsis of a 17-line nonsense poem, but could the "Poem" section begin with just summarizing the contents (such as they are) of the poem? That is, at a grammatical level, what happens on the ning nang nong? All the quotes are subordinate clauses, and I've never heard this poem, so I really cannot guess. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Before I get to this one properly, some of the external links might be helpful, e.g. this page on The Children's Poetry Archive if you have access. The poem is mainly just a load of random animals and/or things making nonsense sounds, then the narrator complains that the Ning Nang Nong is such "a noisy place to belong", I'll see if I can make that a bit more obvious when I come back to this one! Shapeyness (talk) 20:05, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Now that I've read the whole poem, I agree it's very hard to summarize! But I think just the statement that The poem is mainly just a load of random animals and/or things making nonsense sounds, then the narrator complains that the Ning Nang Nong is such "a noisy place to belong" is all I needed. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:53, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I have reworded that sentence to try and get this across better :) Hopefully quoting the last couple of lines is not too excessive. Shapeyness (talk) 22:22, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I feel like I need more context to understand the spoken performances: are these all one recording released three times, or three different performances? In 1969, "On the Ning Nang Nong" was released as the B-side for "The Q5 Piano Tune"[1] and was also included on the charity album No One's Gonna Change Our World.[2] It was also released on the 1974 album by Milligan, Badjelly the Witch I infer that Milligan spoke it for the third one, but was it him the first two times too? I could also use some context for what "The Q5 Piano Tune" is... in general, just a bit more stating the obvious for a newcomer would be useful. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes it was Milligan for the first two as well, have clarified that. I also added the context for "The Q5 Piano Tune" - tbf I also wouldn't have had any idea what that was before writing this! Shapeyness (talk) 22:59, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The new version is much clearer, thanks! I think everything is all set now. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:02, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the appeal of the children's poem "On the Ning Nang Nong" has been attributed to the absurdity of its nonsense sounds, like teapots going "Jibber Jabber Joo"?

• Source: "The Child is Critic: Using Children's Responses in the University Classroom": "The fun of a poem such as "On the Ning Nang Nong" is, in part, that it liberates us from representation. The poem is an example of free play; the mind imagines a place of loud and

absurd noises, a place in which inanimate objects can jibber jabber joo."

• • ALT1: ... that the children's poem "On the Ning Nang Nong" was once voted the United Kingdom's favourite comic poem? Source: "Top poetry is complete nonsense", BBC News.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Take-Charge Patient

Improved to Good Article status by Shapeyness (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Shapeyness (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2025 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article was promoted to GA on 28 October and is 882 words (5,153 characters) in length. It is fully-sourced, neutral and free from plagiarism, as verified by the GA review. The hook is interesting, having gotten me to click on and read the article, and is verified by a citation. QPQ is done, despite not being needed. This was an easy one to approve. Thanks for writing this, I really enjoyed reading it! Grnrchst (talk) 12:47, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the speedy review and kind words, Grnrchst! Shapeyness (talk) 00:21, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]