A colleague told me he used a ploy / time-out called faynites feighnights - pick the spelling the pronunciation is fairly clear fay as in day nites as in nights.

During a game of tag tig or called something else he thinks.

in order to catch breath, or similar he reckoned that by crossing index and next fingers of both hands and shouting faynites you were inviolate for the duration of the finger crossing.

Used sparingly or the game devolves into anarchy - maybe it does anyway.

Anyone heard this before?

London East End 35 years ago.

A superset of TAG he played was called British Bulldog.