Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 02 Jun 18 - 06:01 PM

Actually, the comments about duck tails does intersect wqith haircuts..

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Helen Cole
Date: 11 May 20 - 11:59 PM

It's a food, Welsh rarebit made with tomato sauce, soup or stewed tomatoes instead of beer. AKA ring tum diddy

It appears that Rinktum Ditty came to America from England, specifically from Cheshire. It became associated with New England, but it clearly spread nationwide, even appearing in a 1917 collection of recipes in Arizona.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Guest, LI NY
Date: 05 Mar 21 - 09:57 AM

My mother a privileged white southern gal (born 1920 in Missouri pronounced Missourah) educated in a private womens college in VA used to wear a thing like a thong in her undergarments'. She called it a "chaffie". I asked her what the "chaffie" was for, and she said: "It covers ma "rinktum ditty" son."

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 05 Mar 21 - 10:46 AM

The King of OO-RINKTUM-JING

Dainty Baby Austin!
Your Daddy’s gone to Boston
To see the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And the whale he rode acrost on!

Boston Town’s a city:
But O it’s such a pity! —
They’ll greet the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
With never a nursery ditty!

But me and you and Mother
Can stay with Baby-brother,
And sing of the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And laugh at one another!

So what cares Baby Austin
If Daddy has gone to Boston
To see the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And the whale he rode acrost on?

from

https://medium.com/@poetic-curation/the-king-of-oo-rinktum-jing-8c3ef98eb0b6

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Derek
Date: 14 Dec 21 - 08:46 PM

After a haircut, my Father would say no rinktums. By saying this you avoided getting the top of your head rubbed with knuckles from a rinktum participant.
I came here looking for what rinktum was referring to.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 02:18 PM

My husband and his father would say “Venture rinktums” upon returning home from getting a haircut. Northwest Louisiana 1950s

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 01:56 PM

Surely a rinktum is a belly-button ring?

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Redneck
Date: 27 Sep 22 - 07:35 PM

My father grew up in the Fort Worth, TX, area, born 1928, and went to UT 1945-1950. He taught us to say "no rinctums" specifically to everyone you saw after getting a haircut. If one told you "rinctums" first, they got to rub their knuckles up the back of your head--the harder, the better. This led to, and still leads to, lots of conflict after haircuts, together with creative rules on when "no rinctums" works or doesn't work.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Jul 23 - 11:24 PM

I hadn't thought about this forever but did so today. I couldn't quite remember how my dad said it so I went to the internet for answers. This discussion has set me right. Thank you internet! lol
Venture Rinktums No returns (we would say the entire phrase) was said by the newly haircutted person to avoid the knuckle up the back of the head.Rinktums was said to allow the person saying it to inflict the knuckle. The game wasn't about pain. It was mostly a demonstration of "I'm more aware of the situation than you. I win."
My dad was born in 1916 in Dallas and graduated from Texas Tech in 1939.
He might have picked it up there in West Texas just as several here have previously mentioned their own West Texas roots.
This seems to be a very specific regional thing. I'm guessing, based on Texas' many German immigrants, that the origin somehow has it's roots in the German language. We are of German descent.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Kidd Springs Boy
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 12:12 AM

"Vince Rinktums"(sp?) was something my Dad said when I came home from a haircut as a very little boy, age 3 - 6 or so, then he'd rub his bent knuckle upwards against the back of my freshly shorn neck. For some reason, I googled that weird phrase tonight and found this thread. What an epiphany. This was in Dallas in the late 50's. I also watched Mr. Peppermint every weekday morning and asked my Mom to call the police when Heckle & Jekyll kidnapped Howdy Doody for a few shows on tv.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 09:03 AM

Pretty weird from my Yankee POV.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: GUEST,Kidd Springs Boy
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 12:12 AM

"Vince Rinktums"(sp?) was something my Dad said when I came home from a haircut as a very little boy, age 3 - 6 or so, then he'd rub his bent knuckle upwards against the back of my freshly shorn neck. For some reason, I googled that weird phrase tonight and found this thread. What an epiphany. This was in Dallas in the late 50's. I also watched Mr. Peppermint every weekday morning and asked my Mom to call the police when Heckle & Jekyll kidnapped Howdy Doody for a few shows on tv.

Subject: RE: Folklore/Linguistics: What's a Rinktum?
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 09:03 AM

Pretty weird from my Yankee POV.