“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” and the ambiguous history of counting-out rhymes (2015)

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/04/16/losing-count/

by thunderbong • 4 years ago

61 49 4 years ago

Normille2• 4 years ago

Lots of presumably learned research and obscure historical fact in that article. But it continually states that eeny-meeny is a 'counting system' eg. "used by shepherds to count their sheep" etc.

Eeeny-meeny is not a counting system. Why would people use a nonsense rhyme to count things? It makes no sense (literally!). Eeny-meeny is used as a 'random selection system' when choosing arbitrarily from a series of options.

Odd to get that basic fact wrong in such an in-depth article.

nailer2• 4 years ago

It always picks person that is participants.length % 21 right?

21 for 16 plus ‘Boy Scout you are out’

smegsicle• 4 years ago

"ink a dink is bad?"

je_bailey• 4 years ago

After reading the article. I don’t see where they said it was a counting system. Rather that it has the same rhyming structure as counting systems and so it had to be considered a possibility that it came from that. Which by the end they said was very unlikely.

Normille2• 4 years ago

Point taken. I suppose the 'out' is open to interpretation. I read it as in 'counting out[loud]' or just 'counting out [the number of something]'. But I can see how they could have meant it as in 'counting out [which ones amongst X sheep were for mating/selling/killing/etc.

nailer2• 4 years ago

Some are mondegreens, a term coined by the author Sylvia Wright when she heard “And laid him on the green” as “And Lady Mondegreen.” (“ ’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” is a mondegreen for Jimi Hendrix’s lyric “ ’Scuse me while I kiss the sky”, and Taylor Swift’s long list of ex-lovers are lonely Starbucks lovers.)

Oh there’s a word for this. The first time I was in the U.S. I was looking for an ATM and someone said there was a biyouvet down the road. I wasn’t sure what a biyouvet was but it sounded French and exotic. I asked them if the biyouvet had ATMs and was assured it did, and went on my way to find the aforementioned biyouvet - before I could though I found a Bank of America which did in fact have ATMs.

stratosgear2• 4 years ago

Do not get the 'biyouvet' reference. Care to elaborate?

dmurray• 4 years ago

"B of A" = Bank of America

dcminter2• 4 years ago

I seem to recall baffling people on my first visit to the US by asking them if they knew where a "cash machine" could be found. Either that wasn't a common term for ATM or my strong British accent confounded them.

hairofadog3• 4 years ago

Ha, people in the US should know what a cash machine is. It may have been the accent, but I’m having a hard time imagining how even the most severe British accent would make “cash machine” that hard to understand. Now if you were Scottish, on the other hand…

runnerup• 4 years ago

Not a common term here. It is somewhat ambiguous with "cash register", so some people's brains may not immediately or strongly select the correct interpretation. Some will just fine though.

rahoulb• 4 years ago

My friend was driving across America and his car broke down.

He asked a passerby where the nearest garage was and got blank looks. He quickly realised the issue was pronunciation - “garidge” vs “gararge”

Symbiote2• 4 years ago

There are these cash machines in Denmark, with both American and British labels.

https://travelswithsheila.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/air...

(Copenhagen Airport, although I don't recognize the exact location. Probably the place cruise ship buses meet passengers or something like that.)

edzillion• 4 years ago

There is also another interesting unwritten rule of the English language at play here. The rule goes like this:

In a series of words which differ only (or mostly) by the vowel used, the order should be e, i, a, o

- tic tac toe

- flim flam

- ding dong

- king kong

If you doubt it, try saying the opposite and hear how odd it sounds: The clock went 'Tock Tick'

Anon4Now• 4 years ago

Bingo bango bongo, I never noticed that. I tried saying 'fee fi fo fum' backwards and it took me about 10 times to get it right. There's almost a musical cadence to the usual order that just sounds off key when said backwards.

rippercushions• 4 years ago

This is language-dependent. The Japanese syllabary is sorted in the order a-i-u-e-o, which is weird to the Western ear, but as ubiquitous as A-B-C in Japan.

jihadjihad• 4 years ago

It's probably not unwritten. It's similar to how we conjugate irregular verbs like "sing/ring" or "beget". The topic in linguistics is called vowel gradation [0].

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophony

doomrobo• 4 years ago

Yup! It's called ablaut. English has ablaut reduplication for children's words like kitty-cat or sing-song

SoftTalker2• 4 years ago

Bada bing a counter example?

russdill• 4 years ago

I think the a sound in ba and da just isn't included in the list.

JustLurking2022• 4 years ago

Not really, unlike the other examples the words differ by more than just the vowel sound.

daneel_w• 4 years ago

Swedish version:

- Ole Dole Doff

- Kinke Lane Koff

- Koffe Lane Binke Bane

- Ole Dole Doff

The words mean nothing, though Ole happens to be a Nordic given name.

khaledh• 4 years ago

Arabic version:

- Hady bady

- Kromb Zabady

- Shalo Hatto

- Kollo Alady

Literal translation:

- One-er Start-er

- Cabbage Yugort

- They lift up, They put down

- Everything on this one

kgeist• 4 years ago

I'm fascinated by this. In my native Russian, there's a children's counting rhyme "ene bene raba kvinter finter zhaba" (and the more popular "eniki beniki were eating vareniki").

You can see some resemblence of "ene bene" to "eeny meeny...", and "kvinter finter" to "tethera, methera".

I'm mostly puzzled how it was spread. How did children in Russia learn about this? It's not like it was very common in Russia to see someone from Britain, especially in the countryside.

dirkt• 4 years ago

There's a theory that "eeny meeny" just means "one two" in some original language when humanity spread, and it was conserved in children rhymes, that get transmitted mostly unchanged from generation to generation.

Your Russian version is very interesting, because I also see similarities between "kvinter/finter" and latin "qinque", greek "penta" (both mean "five"), and "zhaba" may relate to Latin "sex", English "six" and so on. So the Russian version may remember even more original number words. The German version "ene mene muh" is sadly degraded compared to the others.

PopAlongKid• 4 years ago

In the canonical Eeny Meeny, “tiger” is standard in the second line, but this is a relatively recent revision.

I'm old enough that as a young child I heard adults reciting both versions (U.S. urban location). Since this is about "ambiguous history", I noticed that it seems none of the other languages have versions that are as explicitly derogatory/racist as the original English version.

The shared genetics of all these counting-out ditties strongly imply an ür-Eeny Meeny. And several folklorists have proposed various etymologies based on the content of some versions of Eeny Meeny, trying to derive significance from some variation of the gibberish. These prehistories range from charmingly whimsical to patently bogus.

I wonder how often it happens that the leaders of any society imbue secondary messages into these counting-out rhymes as a way of indoctrinating the children?

[edit] I just re-read the following, which elaborates on this idea:

The original “Catch a n*** by the toe,” according to Bickerton, points to the rhyme’s roots in an African American community.

TheHappyOddish• 4 years ago

I understand the need to editorialize, but please don't use the quote convention and also editorialize.

bentley3• 4 years ago

These kinds of etymologies are so fun. Other interesting “schoolyard sayings” to look up are high five (surprisingly recent) and rock‐paper‐scissors (surprisingly old).

timbit42• 4 years ago

We always used to say,

Eeny, meeny, miny mo, Catch a tiger by the toe, If he hollers, let him go, Out goes Y, O, U.

...which adds an extra syllable.

personalidea2• 4 years ago

Ene mene miste, es rappelt in der Kiste.

Ene mene meck. Und du bist weg.

affgrff2• 4 years ago

Ene mene mink mank. Pink pank, Eierweier weck.

personalidea2• 4 years ago

Ene mene mink mank. Pink pank.

Use buse acka dich. Eier weier weg.

- That was German.

SoftTalker2• 4 years ago

The "Eeny meeny" rhyme with the objectionable N word in the second line was the first version I learned on the playground as a kid. I didn't know what that word meant, and was quickly disabused by my parents when I repeated it.

tardismechanic2• 4 years ago

Jeremy Clarkson got in trouble for saying it on camera during a segment of Top Gear: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/0...

caseysoftware• 4 years ago

I love mondegreens.

In high school, one of my best friends grew up thinking the song was "secret asian man"

mjklin• 4 years ago

Spanish version:

Tin marín dedó pinguë

Cucara mácara títire fue

Yo no fui, fue Teté

Pégale pégale que ella fue

Symbiote2• 4 years ago

If no adults were listening, we preferred Ip Dip for the increased profanity, especially the last version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_dip

A longer rhyme was this (hyphens showing where the unstressed word isn't the next child)

  There's-a party on-the hill, can-you come?
  Bring-your own bread-and butter and-a bun.
  Who is your best friend?
  James [By landed-on child]
  Jay ay em e es
  You are NOT IT!

With this, you could choose a suitable name and ensure you were out/not-yet-out accordingly.

tardismechanic2• 4 years ago

A couple of fun ones heard on the playground growing up in Mumbai, India:

Inky pinky ponky father had a donkey donkey died father cried inky pinky ponky!!

Dip dip dip oh god please tell me who will give the den in this very fairy old game A E I O U and that fell on YOU!

“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” and the ambiguous history of counting-out rhymes (2015)

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