1. QUOTATION STARTS Re: 22 May 08 - 04:38 PM

If anyone remembers the old tune, "Hi-Ro Jerum," which contains the phrase "skin-a-ma-rink-e-dood-li-um," we may have now discovered a variation (expansion?)on the Rinktum theme...

I believe the song starts,
"There was a rich man, and he lived in Jerusalem
Glory Halleleuia, Hi-Ro Jerum..."

This was contained in an old "Song Fest" book from 1960 or so.
QUOTATION ends

This song is quoted by Gerald Durrell in _My Family and Other Animals_ as one he sang with his tutor in his pre-War childhood in Corfu, so it is at least from the earlier half of what is now the last century. The family was from India, so they might have carried it from there, unless the tutor taught it to him. Jerusalem rhymes with spruce-lum here, which is charming... I did not know there was a game attached. The full words of the song would be nice to have.

2. These -um endings in verse, genuine and nonsense or nonsensed are not uncommon - e.g. the nursery rhyme "My true lov livse across the sea/Petrum partrum paradise temporie/Perrie merrie dixie dominie" etc.

3. Re: QUOTATION STARTS: I dunno whats the fuss - we thought everbuddy growed up hollering "rinktums" when somebody got a haircut. If you was the one what got your haircut and fergot to holler "venture rinktums", you know how those knuckles hurt going up both sides of your bald head. My dad learned it from his dad , who was born in 1884 and grew up in Jewett, Leon County, Texas - about midway between Houston and Dallas.QUOTATION ends

- Ah done done growed in parts furrin' ter most folkses heah, en ah kin tell y'awl th' kwivverlent cust'm in ole Bombay way out eass-wudds wuz ter cawl out "Chiptotee" ter a felleh whut'd had his hair newly shawn - en ter givum a sharp crack ovet the haid with the nucckles (c. 1969).

The "And no returns" portion of the custom was not used tere, though familiar from other British derived folk-customs in Calcutta 1960s.

4. So how many distinct/unrelated homonym words and meanings does this make so far?

Sanjay Sircar