eena meena mackeracka (children's rhymes)

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: GUEST,Phil A
Date: 01 May 02 - 03:57 PM

Also from North East England (50s 60s):

Eenie meeny mackeracka Dare-dum dominacker Ting-a-ling-a-lollipop Bing bang boosh.

Incidentally, 'eenie meeny myny mo' is one to four in one of the Celtic tongues ... 'hickory dickory dock' is eight nine ten.

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 01 May 02 - 03:49 PM

Eeny meeny miny mo

Sit the baby on the poh

When it's done wipe it's bum

Eeny meeny miny mo

Eenameena macaraca Airidackeraca Chickeraca boomeracka om pom push

Northern England, industrial, 1950's

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 01 May 02 - 03:23 PM

But, WYSIWYG, if you learned it as "Tiger" and never knew it had anything to do with the n-word, then your culture was not transmitting a racist message anymore. You weren't to know that another version of the same rhyme once used to be racist. The version you knew was perhaps insensitive to an endangered species, but not racist.

I grew up in upper Manhattan, where using the n-word would get you seriously f*cked up if not killed, but everyone knew the tiger rhyme, and none of us kids knew it had anything racist in it. When an older black man told us the original, we didn't believe it. Until he showed it to us in a book. Personally, I think "Tiger" is an improvement precisely because it isn't racist anymore (and because if you catch a tiger by the toe you will get what you deserve!)

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:59 PM

More contributions please, I want to know if it ever crossed the atlantic

Greg -- It did, sort of... the "Catch a Tiger/N______ (also, as I understand it, during WWII, it was "Catch old Mo Jo by the toe") that Susan posted above, is the version I learned here in America.

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: IanC
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:39 PM

No, Sorcha, not the Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.

BTW we used it as a counting rhyme just the same as eeny meeny miny mo and the taters game.

There are a few other threads about counting rhymes on the mudcat, with variants of this one in. I'm too lazy now to look for them.

Cheers! Ian

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: Sorcha
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:34 PM

Could it have been the "menemenetarkel......"whatever that the finger wrote on the wall? Book of Samuel?? Somewhere in the Bible.......

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:24 PM

We used eenie meenie minie mo (with "that word") as a counting out rhyme...the eena meena mackeracka as just a chant, a sort of secret rhyme you learnt and treasured. We never used itfor counting, though it sounds as if that's what it's for, with the emphasised POOSH at the end. More contributions pleas, I want to know ifit ever crossed the atlantic. Also, 'eenie meenie minie mo' sounds as if its linguistic origin must long predate the use of the word "nigger" in English.I wonder how it went originally?

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 May 02 - 11:37 AM

OK, I know I am not the only one thinking of this one from the US.... here is how I learned it:

Eenie meenie miney moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe.
If it hollers, let it go,
Eenie meenie miney moe.

So that's not the original version. People say "Hey! Don't call ME a racist! I don;t have any of THAT stuff in ME!" Yet the culture transmits racist messages even before we are old enough to know there is such a thing as "difference" between human beings (but not really) (but there is) (but we have more in common than we have different) (ad infinitum)

The version I heard later in life was not about a tiger; it used what is now known universally to be an ugly racial epithet, "nigger."

~Susan

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 May 02 - 11:32 AM

Now I know what to do with the silly words the Three Stooges would come up with-- put them in a counting song.

Annacannapannasan

Onnaconnapooner

Anyone else have any of these? Are they posted anywhere online?

~Susan

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:50 AM

wow, thanks Masato. Now, any personal memories? Where did YOU learn it? And how did it go?

Subject: RE: eena meena mackeracka
From: masato sakurai
Date: 01 May 02 - 08:43 AM

There's a good collection: Roger D. Abrahams and Lois Rankin, eds., Counting-Out Rhymes: A Dictionary (University of Texas Press, 1980). I'll quote the entry (no. 120).

Eena meena macker racker
Rare, ro, domino,
Juliacker, alapacker,
Rom, Tom, tush.

Opie (1969) [Children's Games in Street and Playground], 40-41, 53 [Scotland, England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, since 1920's]. Eighteen variants, beginning "Eeny, meeny," "Eeni, meeni," "Iney, memey," "Ina, mina," "Eany, meany," "Ena, mena," "Eanie, meenie," "Eani meani," "Eny, meeny," and "Eena, mena." Discussed in relation to other gibberish rhymes. The rhyme is sometimes introduced with "I went to a Chinese laundry / To buy a loaf of bread; / They wrapped it in a tablecloth / And this is what they said." Three embryo forms of the rhyme are given: "Ena dena, dahsa, doma" (1909); "Eener, deener, abber, dasher" (1910); and "Haberdasher, isher asher" (1916) (see 123).
Turner (1969), 11 [Melbourne, 1920, 1962]. Two variants: "Eena, meena, micka, macka" and "Eeny, meeny macka racka."
Daiken (1949), 2.
Ritchie (1965), 45 [Edinburgh]. Two variants.
Those Dusty Bluebells (1965), 22 [Ayrshire]. "Eenie meenie macaracha, / A M dominacha, / Cheek-a-pop-a, lolly-pop-a, / Am bam bush."
Fowke (1969), 111 [Canada]. "Eeny meeny macker racker, / Rear ride down the racker. / Chicka poppa lollipop, / A rum tum trash."

~Masato

Subject: eena meena mackeracka
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 May 02 - 07:34 AM

Perhaps there's been a thread on this, but I couldnt find one. Is this known throughout Britain? Ireland? America? Anybody recall a different version? Mine goes( Devon c1952 at a guess) Eena meena mackeracka/Rare ri dominacka/chikkapoppa lollipoppa/ rom pom poosh.