Shakespearean Hokey Pokey

A bit of genius unsourced net.stuff: if Shakespeare wrote the Hokey Pokey. "The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt/Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about."

Update: And we have a source! It's from a "Washington Post Style Invitational contest that asked readers to submit "instructions" for something (anything), but written in the style of a famous person. The winning entry was The Hokey Pokey (as written by William Shakespeare)", "Written by Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls, Maryland, and submitted by Katherine St. John." - Thanks, princessalex!

Shakespeare Teaches the Hokey Pokey

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Mark Dow

Alas, “dervish” was most likely an unknown term to the Bard, particularly with reference to the Sufi whirling practice (also, like the Hokey, divinely inspired).
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dervish&year_start=1720&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
- pjcamp
  
  Since Real Shakespeare introduced over 1700 words into English, their first appearance in print being in his works, perhaps we can allow that Parody Shakespeare might have invented one.
  
  But good catch.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    The term dervish was first imported into the English lexicon in the 1580s – before or at the very beginning of Shakespeare’s writing career.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=693977107 Megan Maxwell
  
  The OED cites a translator named Washington using the word “dervish” in English in 1585. William Shakespeare, then 21 years old, would have had 31 years to learn the word.
princessalex

To give credit to its author:
http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/hokeypokey.htm
ImmutableMichael

Twas that more recent Bill, Mr Bailey, who has provided us with the best rework of this song in “Das Hokey Kokey”, a tribue to Kraftwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0
- Jonathan Roberts
  
  British humour has an interesting relationship with Germans, it seems. Germans supposedly don’t have a sense of humour (not true), but they seem to love British humour. A surprising number of British comedians (Bill Bailey and Kevin Eldon from that sketch, John Cleese, Andrew Sachs, etc.) seem to speak at least passable German.
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    You can adde Eddie Izzard to that list – he’s apparently going to do his next shows in Germany in German. On the other side, Henning Wehn seems to be getting a good response in the UK.
    
    Which is nice.
  - http://www.summerseale.com/ Summer Seale
    
    This explains it better than anything I can think of:
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0jpk-NYg24
    
    It’s also classic. =)
- Wreckrob8
  
  But is there a Senor Coconut cover, too?
TheBehinder

I always thought it was the Hokey Cokey.
- Kristian Järventaus
  
  Some areas have Hokey Cokey, others Hokey Poppey, not to mention Hokey Sodey.
digithed

Shakespeare was English and therefore would have, correctly, called it the Hokey Cokey.
- Wreckrob8
  
  It would seem that the original title was Hokey Pokey which the US preserves. Hokey Cokey is a variant. This is probably one of those cases where US English is closer to Shakespearean English than British English.
  - tw1515tw
    
    The original was the hokey COKEY.
    There was a court case in the UK over it a number of years ago, with an American claiming copyright over the song. He lost.
    
    That’s what is was all about.
    - Wreckrob8
      
      So the courts now have jursidiction over etymology. I wasn’t thinking of the song but the origins of the phrase itself. I phrased it poorly and ambiguously.
    - malindrome
      
      Next topic: What’s the proper pronunciation for the chemical element with the symbol “Al”?
      - dragonfrog
        
        Fight!
      - Daneel
        
        Humphrey Davy definitely proposed Aluminum before Aluminium was chosen to match the other -iums.
        
        I think he actually wanted Alumium first though.
      - ocker3
        
        I believe you mean spelling, as that’s the origin of the difference
- Boundegar
  
  En Francais, c’est le Heuqui Queuqui.
know more

This is probably one of those cases where US English is closer to Shakespearean English than British English.
http://twitter.com/LGelevator Matt Monitto

And the original source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A12136-2003Mar22&notFound=true
Russell Letson

Maybe more general-English-Renaissance than specifically Shakespearean. Will would more likely have written couplets than an ABAB rhyme scheme–unless this is the last ten lines of a sonnet, or maybe a fragment of one of the songs: “That antic dance thou sang of yesternight,/ it gladdened my heart. Do thou sing again./ I wot not hokey, neither pokey,/ yet the two conjoined do make fair music.”
http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

Well, I’m off to write a plainchant titled “O hoc est corpus.”

But first, I need to learn Latin.
- http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar
  
  Ooh — I just realized: hokey pokey == hocus pocus == hoc est corpus == this is my body.
  
  Coincidence?