the following, which has fifteen counts:
Errie, orrie, round the table,
Eat as much as you are able;
If you’re able eat the table,
Errie, orrie, out!When the word ‘out!’ falls on a person they must stand aside, and the survivor—on
whom the count has never fallen—has to take the disliked role of chaser. This procedure
is known as ‘dipping’. Sometimes the dipping can be extended by using fists (as in One
potato, two potato, three potato, four,/Five potato, six potato, seven potato, More! when
one fist is put behind the player’s back on ‘More!’) or by counting-round on feet in a
similar fashion. However, the most enjoyable verses incorporate an element of choice
(which, if the player is quick-witted, can be adjusted to avoid the count landing
unfavourably). One such is My mother and your mother, an old-established favourite in
Scotland, where an Edinburgh version was recorded amongst The Rymour Club
Miscellanea, vol. 1, 1906–1911:
My mother and your mother
Were hanging out the clothes,
My mother gave your mother
A punch on the nose.
What colour was the blood?
Shut your eyes and think.
Blue.
B-L-U-E spells blue, and out you go
With a jolly good clout upon your big nose.The most interesting of these rhymes are perhaps the mysterious rigmaroles that the
children sometimes refer to as Chinese counting. They are gibberish, yet sound as if
they might contain some hidden meaning. A widespread favourite in Britain during the
1950s and 1960s went like this:
Eenie, meenie, macca, racca,
Air, rie, dominacca,
Chicka pocka, lollipoppa,
Om pom push.Yet this construction is in none of the nineteenth-century folk-lore collections and can
only be traced back (except for precursors of the last two lines) to the 1920s. During the
first three decades of the twentieth century, indeed, far the best known counting jingle
was:
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,PLAYGROUND RHYMES AND THE ORAL TRADITION 181