A Diller A Dollar

Postcard, Linda Edgerton, made in 1918. From the Collection of Dawn and Peter Cope (click image for larger version)

'A diller, a dollar,
a ten o'clock scholar,
what makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o'clock,
and now you come at noon.'

The word ‘diller’ is a Yorkshire term for a boy who is dim-witted and stupid so this rhyme seems to be a moral lesson warning the importance of punctuality. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes by Iona and Peter Opie (Oxford, OUP, 1951) suggests that ‘a diller, a dollar’ are taken from the words dilatory and dullard or that maybe ‘a diller, a dollar’ is related to dilly-dally. As English schools traditionally started at nine o’clock or earlier, anyone who arrived even at ten o’clock would certainly be very late.

This verse has an element of nonsense, with its contradictory third and fifth lines. Another popular saying about punctuality was:

'I see you’re coming early, lately.
You used to be behind, before,
but now you’re first, at last.'