Stop me, oh-oh-oh stop me!

[venta]

Those of you who have in the past joined in with my attempts to find out names of childhood things in your area might like to pop along to ar_gemlad's journal today. She wants to know what you said to call a truce during playground games.

Comments

[valkyriekaren]

If it was hide-and-seek, to call everyone in and end the game was 'olly olly olly'. To temporarily remove yourself (for example to go to the loo) was 'skinch' or 'skinchies', holding up crossed fingers. The verb was 'to have a skinch/skinchies on', as in: "You can't tag me, I've got skinchies on!"

[venta]

That's interesting - a bunch of my friends from Newcastle-ish say "skinchies", but they're all a good chunk older than me and I've never heard anyone my age say it. Commenters on ar_gemlad's journal did produce quite a variety of words, but not that - and a lot of people who reckoned their games had no such concept :)

[valkyriekaren]

Oh... or hide-and-seek was sometimes "Ally-ally iiiinnnnnnnn!"

[venta]

I don't think our hide-and-seek had an 'end' as such. We played what we called hidey-block or hidey-bo, where there was an incentive to come back anyway - there is a concept of a base, and whoever is it goes out to seek the hiders. The hiders, meanwhile, are trying to get back to the base and tap themselves in ("block 1-2-3 in!")