One potato, two potato, three potato, four
This is a question for anyone who has small children, hangs out with small children, or, I suppose, is a small child.
I suppose this question hangs on the idea that today's kids still play the sort of games which require them to choose who's "it", rather than just sitting around with PlayStations waiting for the relevant controller to light up.
At my school in the very early 80s, the standard method went:
Eeny meeny miny mo,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he squeals let him go,
Eeny meeny miny mo.
Interestingly ChrisC, who is around the same age as I am, reports that at his school they caught Tiggers by their toes. What did you catch ?
At the point at which I learned the rhyme, I had no idea what anyone meant by the word "nigger". In fact, for reasons best known only to a four year-old pysche, I promptly associated the rhyme with One, Two, Three, Four, Five and assumed that a nigger must be a kind of fish. No, I know fish don't have toes; if you're used to kids' rhymes and can happily cope with monkeys sleeping in bunks, dead men getting up to fight and the whole of existence being made of buttercream[*], fish with toes is a pretty small issue.
However, ideas about fish notwithstanding, I'm rather hoping that today children don't catch niggers. Do they catch something different ? Do they use a different rhyme altogether ?
Mind you, I'm fairly sure that we would have been prevented from using one our other standard rhymes for choosing, the rather graceless:
Ip, dip, dog shit
You trod in it
had anyone heard us. I guess we must have been careful not to say it in earshot of any staff; "shit", unlike "nigger", was a word you could get told off for.
Yes, I'm aware of The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. But that's talking about an era that was already very outdated when I read it twenty years ago. I want to know what's happening now.
Of course, it's always possible that today's kids are smart enough to have realised that this method of choosing "it" is completely deterministic, and thus highly open to fixing. Plus, of course, tacking on the extra You are in and you are out or It was not you, it was you was always an option if the chanter didn't like the outcome.
So, put your spuds in...
Ibble, obble, black bobble,
Ibble, obble, out
[*] Admittedly, that one turned turned out to be a misunderstanding. Life is but a dream, apparently.
Update For those who don't want to trawl through comments, the menagerie of things which can be caught by their toes currently stands at: tigers, Tiggers, tinkers, nickers, rabbits, fish, spiders and pigs.
I suppose this question hangs on the idea that today's kids still play the sort of games which require them to choose who's "it", rather than just sitting around with PlayStations waiting for the relevant controller to light up.
At my school in the very early 80s, the standard method went:
Eeny meeny miny mo,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he squeals let him go,
Eeny meeny miny mo.
Interestingly ChrisC, who is around the same age as I am, reports that at his school they caught Tiggers by their toes. What did you catch ?
At the point at which I learned the rhyme, I had no idea what anyone meant by the word "nigger". In fact, for reasons best known only to a four year-old pysche, I promptly associated the rhyme with One, Two, Three, Four, Five and assumed that a nigger must be a kind of fish. No, I know fish don't have toes; if you're used to kids' rhymes and can happily cope with monkeys sleeping in bunks, dead men getting up to fight and the whole of existence being made of buttercream[*], fish with toes is a pretty small issue.
However, ideas about fish notwithstanding, I'm rather hoping that today children don't catch niggers. Do they catch something different ? Do they use a different rhyme altogether ?
Mind you, I'm fairly sure that we would have been prevented from using one our other standard rhymes for choosing, the rather graceless:
Ip, dip, dog shit
You trod in it
had anyone heard us. I guess we must have been careful not to say it in earshot of any staff; "shit", unlike "nigger", was a word you could get told off for.
Yes, I'm aware of The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. But that's talking about an era that was already very outdated when I read it twenty years ago. I want to know what's happening now.
Of course, it's always possible that today's kids are smart enough to have realised that this method of choosing "it" is completely deterministic, and thus highly open to fixing. Plus, of course, tacking on the extra You are in and you are out or It was not you, it was you was always an option if the chanter didn't like the outcome.
So, put your spuds in...
Ibble, obble, black bobble,
Ibble, obble, out
[*] Admittedly, that one turned turned out to be a misunderstanding. Life is but a dream, apparently.
Update For those who don't want to trawl through comments, the menagerie of things which can be caught by their toes currently stands at: tigers, Tiggers, tinkers, nickers, rabbits, fish, spiders and pigs.