One potato, two potato, three potato, four

[venta]

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 But that's talking about an era that was already very outdated when I read it twenty years ago.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.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I assumed 'nigger' was actually 'nicker', i.e. one who nicks stuff, a thief. I do remember thinking about it carefully, and also repeating the rhyme to my mum who was shocked, and told me why nigger was a bad word and why I wasn't to use it.

There was also a longer one:

Eeny meeny makaraka
Rare rye dominaka
Chipolata, lollipoppa
Om, pom, pear, puss
And you are not IT!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, interesting! I know that nonsense-y bit, or something very like it, but as the chorus of a song not a choosing rhyme.

Once long ago, there lived a funny man
His name was Ika-raka-ika-raka-ran
His legs were long and his feet were small
And he couldn't walk at all.

Eeny meeny ming mong ping pong chow
Easy veasy vacilleasy easy veasy vow
Eeny meeny makaraka rare rye
Chikaraka dominaka lollipoppa
Om pom push!

There are further verses about his wife and children, too, but I'm a bit hazy on them.

(Spelling entirely made up on the spot :)

At one point we may have caught kippers

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Somewhere at my parents' house I have a double LP of a Cockney geezer singing childrens' songs of the genus arr. trad. which features a similar song that haunts me to this day:

Eeny meeny makaraka
Om pom pakaraka
Eeny meeny makaraka
Om pom push
Ip dip chibberdy dip
You clap your hands and you start to skip
Ip dip chibberdy dip
You can't hang around all da-ayyy
Eeny meeny makaraka (etc.)

It's worth a quick search for "om pom push" to find variants up and down the country, plus h2g2 has a page called "selection rhymes" which answers your original question with copious data. (Admittedly, from ten years ago.)

I understand that "Dick and Dom" had a game with a similar extended name at some point.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Ditto on 'nicker', and lack of assumptions - I remember it being used in school without twitch factor, and I'm pretty sure even when tiny I knew n-gger was a Bad Word (precocious reader = getting Told about words pretty damn fast...I knew about whores years before I actually understood about prostitution, for example!)

I'm now trying to remember other rhymes - I know one ended "I see england, I see France, I see (x) in her underpants" which used to be a cue for X to jump into the rope (and risk exposure of knickers if the rope caught on her skirt!) ...It was something about going up and down stairs I think?