A hundred other things more or less familiar to us all,
illustrate this rule. In some of their nursery rhymes everything
is said and done on the "cart before the horse" plan.
This is illustrated by a rhyme in which when the speaker
heard a disturbance outside his door he discovered it was
because a "dog had been bitten by a man." Of course,
he at once rushed to the rescue. He "took up the door
and he opened his hand." He "snatched up the dog and
threw him at a brick." The brick bit his hand and he left
the scene "beating on a horn and blowing on a drum."

Tongue twisters are as common in Chinese as in English, and are
equally appreciated by the children. From the nature of such
rhymes, however, it is impossible to translate them into any
other language.

In one of these children's songs, a cake-seller informs the
public in stentorian tones that his wares will restore sight to
the blind and that

They cure the deaf and heal the lame,
And preserve the teeth of the aged dame.

They will further cause hair to grow on a bald head and
give courage to a henpecked husband. A girl who has been
whipped by her mother mutters to herself how she would
love and serve a husband if she only had one, even going to
the extent of calling that much-despised mother-in-law her
mother, and when overheard by her irate parent and asked
what she was saying, she answers: