There's a party on the hill will you come, bring a cup, a saucer & a bun...who is your best friend?

This before a game of Hide & Seek
yeah, that is it

1)

“Eene, meene, miste/es rappelt in der Kiste/eene, meene, meck/und du bist weg.”

(“Eenie, meenie, minie/there’s a rattling in the box/eenie meenie my/and you are gone.”

2)

“Eine kleine Dickmadam/zog sich eine Hose an./Die Hose krachte/Dickmadam lachte/zog sie wieder aus/und du bist raus.”

“A little plump lady/put on her pants/the pants split/plump lady laughed/and you are it.

Eenie, meenie, mynie, mo – My mother said to pick the very best one and…you..are…IT!
(Although sometimes it was “and you are Not It” so it was hard to know.

@janbb Same here. Eeenie, meenie, mynie, mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollars let him go. Eenie, meenie, mynie, mo. And O-U-T means out you GO! (tagging someone’s head.)

or
If he hollars make him pay, 50 dollars every day.
My mom told me to pick the very best one and O-U-T means YOU are IT! (tagging someone’s head.)

I was way out there in the boonies. All I had was my brother. If he didn’t punch me in the stomach when I asked if he wanted to play, we were set.

The ‘tiger’ word was post-1980. Something else was said in the 1970s.

Here are two additional ones I remember—

Your mama and my mama were hanging out clothes.
My mother punched your mother right in the nose.
What color was the blood?

(A random color is named)

O-r-a-n-g-e spells Orange and YOU are not IT.

(Goes on until only one is left).

Or,

Bubblegum, Bubblegum in a dish.
How many pieces—do you wish?

(Or this one)—

Micky mouse built a house.
How many bricks did it take?

Under the bumble bushes
Down by the sea
Bum bum bum (lol)
Too long for you my darling
Too long for me
We’re getting married
To raise a fam-i-ly

A boy for you
A girl for me
How many fishes in the sea?
1…2…3

In the end, these songs became too long & tedious.
We found the best solution was to order the ginger kid to be “it” :D

We used the N word for tiger. It wasn’t used in a bad way, it was just they way it was said.

How is it not in a bad way? We said it when I was too little to get it. When I understood, I was so effing mortified.

The original words were “Eenie meenie miny moe—catch a ROOSTER by the toe. If he hollers let him go—eenie meenie miny moe.

The N- word came in later, “Catch a N—- by the toe. If he hollers, make him pay, fifty dollars every day.”

By the 1980s, kids were substituting the word ‘tiger’.

Having been in a folklore class in the late 1980s, and having lived through the ‘70s, I can attest that the N- word was common in jokes and rhymes. I don’t think children were actually haters. By the 1980s, most kids (except extreme rednecks) had substituted the word ‘tiger.’

Kids just didn’t know better. When black and white children started actually playing together, most white children found the word abhorrent.

@Yellowdog Not going to lie, I heard that later in life (the N word in the rhyme), or maybe it was from other kids, but it was rare to hear it and I didn’t use it.

There are a few other phrases that bothered me -the Brazil Nut was called a N toe, and jury-rigged was N rigged. I haven’t heard either in several decades now.

@Patty_Melt Agreed, after a certain age, it’s surprising what you realize you’re actually saying. I even hated the term “Whiggers”, for the white kids (a la Emine,) who acted, spoke or dress like rappers. It’s crazy that people either don’t realize or don’t care how offensive it is.

The tiger version came along much earlier than the eighties. I was switched to that during the early seventies.
That was funny because at the time I was attending a school that a rival team was tigers.

All we ever said in my part of the world (at least in my experience) was “tiger.” I think I was an adult when I heard that some places had used the other word.

Shame this turned into the racist origins of one particular song, but hey…it is Fluther :D

“rooster” was the original term, in the ‘eenie meenie miny moe’ chant.

Those words (eenie meenie minie moe) may have been part of a Celtic counting system (numbers) or used to select things or eliminate things from choices being decided upon.

It is amazing to me that children still use, and make up, such elimination games, jump rope rhymes, jingles, parodies of songs, etc as their ancestors did for hundreds or thousands of years, even without the internet or international communications, Or, that some of the games we played, other children in distant parts of the world may play—or they may not be known even on the other side of town.

And this is not a racist discussion. Some of us who were white kids in the ‘70s and before DO recall times when blacks were considered another type of people, e.g. ‘not us’. They weren’t hated. No one wanted to infringe on their rights. But their antics and other stereotypes were the subject of jokes and ridicule. That is regarded as hate now, but back then, we did not seethe with hate or want to hurt anyone or see them suffer. They were just ‘not us’ and we thought ourselves better, more intelligent, cleaner, whatever.

Cultural and lifestyle differences were more divided then. Today, even in environments where children of one race are greatly outnumbered in a school or neighborhood, everyone considers everyone equal and sees little or no difference in a person who happens to be of another race. Race is still an issue, but we’ve come a long way in our acceptance of each other and our differences,