History of a rhyme
Jul. 27th, 2004 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusOK, I've got several people on my friends list (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
casfic?) who might know something more about this.
31seel got me thinking about the history of the old children's rhyme:
So, A few minutes of web searching turned up :
The rhyme seems to have originated in Britain, and been imported to the U.S. by GIs during WWII. In the UK, the most common second line seemed to be "catch a tinker by the toe". In the US, it became more common to use "catch a nigger by the toe". When I was a child, we used "catch an injun by the toe", presumably because n-- was already falling out of favor among suburbanites at that time.
Commonly, we also tacked on a line that would go something like "My mother told me to pick the best one, and you are it." at the end, varying the exact wording ("...the very best one..." or "...you are not it...") depending on who we wanted to choose to be It.
Not sure where "tiger" came from, but my guess would be that American soldiers would have little to no idea what a "tinker" was (a common enough word in British literature, but not so much in the U.S.), and replaced it with "tiger", a word which sounds vaguely similar, especially when taking accents into consideration. If this is the case, it may have actually preceded n-- in the American variant.
Couldn't find any information about the original origin of it, but one web site hinted that it may be descended from a poem used by the druids in ye olden dayes to choose their sacrifices.
Some other versions of the rhyme:
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo,
Put the baby on the po,
When he's done
Wipe his bum
Shove the paper up the lum;
--_The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren_ (1959)
Eena, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a nigger by his toe;
If he squeals, let him go, Eena, meena, mina, mo.
--_The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes_ (1997)
Eeny, weeny, winey, wo,
Where do all the Frenchmen go?
To the east and to the west,
And into the old crow's nest.
--_ibid._
I'd be interested if anybody knows more...
casfic?) who might know something more about this.31seel got me thinking about the history of the old children's rhyme:
Eeny Meeny Miney Moe
Catch a tiger by his toe
If he hollers let him go
Eeny Meeny Miney Moe
So, A few minutes of web searching turned up :
The rhyme seems to have originated in Britain, and been imported to the U.S. by GIs during WWII. In the UK, the most common second line seemed to be "catch a tinker by the toe". In the US, it became more common to use "catch a nigger by the toe". When I was a child, we used "catch an injun by the toe", presumably because n-- was already falling out of favor among suburbanites at that time.
Commonly, we also tacked on a line that would go something like "My mother told me to pick the best one, and you are it." at the end, varying the exact wording ("...the very best one..." or "...you are not it...") depending on who we wanted to choose to be It.
Not sure where "tiger" came from, but my guess would be that American soldiers would have little to no idea what a "tinker" was (a common enough word in British literature, but not so much in the U.S.), and replaced it with "tiger", a word which sounds vaguely similar, especially when taking accents into consideration. If this is the case, it may have actually preceded n-- in the American variant.
Couldn't find any information about the original origin of it, but one web site hinted that it may be descended from a poem used by the druids in ye olden dayes to choose their sacrifices.
Some other versions of the rhyme:
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo,
Put the baby on the po,
When he's done
Wipe his bum
Shove the paper up the lum;
--_The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren_ (1959)
Eena, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a nigger by his toe;
If he squeals, let him go, Eena, meena, mina, mo.
--_The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes_ (1997)
Eeny, weeny, winey, wo,
Where do all the Frenchmen go?
To the east and to the west,
And into the old crow's nest.
--_ibid._
I'd be interested if anybody knows more...
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hahahahaha!!!
Date: 2004-07-28 02:48 am (UTC)Re: hahahahaha!!!
Date: 2004-07-28 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-31 09:34 pm (UTC)The version I learnt as a child was the nigger one, although the tinker one was still extant. They all seem to involve the thing being caught as some sort of social outgroup, whether it's black people, tinkers, Frenchmen or whatever. The exception is the baby one you quote, which I've never come across. Incidentally, a lum is a chimney.
The problem with most rhymes is that we forget most of them as soon as we enter puberty. I can remember one or two skipping rhymes, but I know I used to know dozens. I don't know if group skipping is something that is/was done by American girls, but in Britain, you would have a group of girls, two of whom would hold each end of a long rope. The rest of the girls would take it in turns to skip a section of a complicated pattern of jumps, while singing a verse of the rhyme that accompanied them. One I can remember is:
I bought a little bubble car in 1964 (4 jumps)
I took it round the corner (2 jumps & on the word corner, jumper runs round the back of one of the rope holders and re-enters the jump, does the second verse which I can't remember, and then goes to the back of the queue.)
These ones where you have to run into the rope to start were always harder.
Which all goes to show that I don't know much about eenie meenie rhymes.