Eeny, meeny, mony, my, This song was originally titled Mammys Little Baby Loves Shortnin Bread, and places Black women squarely in white womens kitchens. Germany: Added to that, as far back as the 19th century there have been variants of the rhyme which are so dissimilar to our current version as to be scarcely recognisable - 'Hana, mana, mona, mike' (from New York) and 'Eetern, feetern, peeny, pump' (from Scotland) and many of these now have local variants and words added from other languages. However, the original words used in the song have far less benign implications. Eje, veje, vaek. There isnt a clearcut explanation as to how these global variations came about and to provide one would require knowing definitively where Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moecomes from (which is, alas, impossible). When he's done, Wipe his bum. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe And we want to be aware of our racist roots," Shaftel said. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. The use of the word nigger was censored for the American market, being replaced by sailor. But in that context, does the current edit make this nursery rhyme any less derogatory? You can replace "catch a tiger" with any word (catch a boy, catch girl, etc) or any animal, or when singing to baby you can say "catch a baby". Nevertheless, there are as many theories as to the origin of Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moeas there are variations. But when you get money, your little bride Will surely find out where you hide, So there's the door and when I count four, Then out goes you. Bellow are the lyrics of one of the accepted modern versions of the Eeny, meeny, miny, moe rhyme and also an older version. De lectrick fluid magnified, and killd five hundred n**gers. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head," Johnson wrote. [Note: UK residents who voted in the May 2011 referendum might notice a parallel with the 'First Past the Post' and 'Alternative Vote' systems.]. Again, this is in no way a defense of those songs, a defense for keeping their original lyrics or absolving the audience members from their consumption of racist material. MARTIN: Poet Adrienne Raphel. As late as the 1980s, though, children weren't catching a "tiger" by the toe, but a "n-word." I'm gay you're gay he's gay she's. Counting off has always been a way to group and identify things. In England, for example, Bolton found this version: In the US, while Bolton found dozens of different versions, a similar theme, with very specific wording, was found in many of them. I've updated the piece to reflect those concerns. In Johnson's article, he writes that he ultimately decided against telling his kids about the origins of the ice cream truck song, but they will likely learn it one day. Here are some versions from English-speaking countries Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe Eeeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo England, English Language Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe USA, English Language Eenie Meenie Sicileeny USA, English Language The Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo series is now on display at the Children's Defense Fund's national headquarters and is a searing daily reminder of how many children are not free but caged in America. What's its historyboth good and bad? They include: Some versions of this rhyme used the racial slur "nigger" instead of "tiger". If he hollers, let him go This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Instead of Monkeys, Five Little Monkeys (also known as Ten Little Monkeys originally used the n word or darkies as a reference to Black people. The classic American version most are familiar with goes like this: "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a tiger by the toe, If he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, mo." This, however, is a recent revision. Wo? The stories we learn from them are painful, but also valuable. The stories we learn from them are painful, but also valuable. Prior to the popular variation used today that involves catching tigers, a common American variant of the rhyme used a racist slur against Black people instead of the word. Reader support helps us keep our explainers free for all. Bolton identifies the first line as plain gibberish. I love writing about what I love. However, the lyrics to this song were not originally about a tiger. Please enter a valid email and try again. These songs are part of a racist history our nation's history. It is very hard to establish the exact origin of the song as it has so many accepted forms, in different languages and countries. The jury did not side with the plaintiffs, and though they appealed, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the initial ruling. "Its well known that theres some challenging language in the Gospel of John," Michael Marissen, a noted Bach scholar, said in a 2013 interview with WQXR-radio. The rhyme has existed in various forms since well before 1820[1] and is common in many languages using similar-sounding nonsense syllables. Hide and Seek Chasey; Site-wide utilities The American version became so prominent that it spread all over the world, and was still sung years later. Wash your hands afterwards. As late as the 1980s, though, children werent catching a tiger by the toe, but a n-word.. You know, they're like these nonsense syllables that then sound like words that you recognize. Later, they can learn where the songs came from, and that lesson will be an important one. It is one of a large group of similar rhymes in which the child who is pointed to by the chanter on the last syllable is either "chosen" or "counted out". If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. MARTIN: Can you find it in other languages or is this exclusively something that lives in English? Eeny Meeny Miny Mo Image Credit: Pexels Children all over the world use a variation of this childhood chant, most often used, in America, to decide who will be "it" in a game like tag. You might think that childrens nursery rhymes are about as innocent as it gets, but as with pretty much anything created after the rise of the concept of racism in the 1400s, thats not the case. Accuracy and availability may vary. Tell us about them in the comments! I can see right through you. Catch a racist by the toe. You know them by heart, but you can do these little, like, switches and flips and variations in them. Raphel wrote about eeny meeny miny mo for The Paris Review. eenie meanie, miny, moe phrase. You start saying eeny meeny, and then you go miny mo. Alternate Versions and Related Songs Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe Song Variations Tweet Notes *Potty ***** Other Versions: Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo. Catch a mouse by the toe; The, "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Eeena, meena, mina, mo. If he hollers, let him go. 144 Likes, 0 Comments - VW Barstool (@barstool_vw) on Instagram: "eenie meenie miney mo, your season is over, time to go home @barstool_elida" The book was published in 1888 and thoroughly describes the authors research into various childrens counting-out rhymes that were popular at the time. Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. If they squeal make them squeal some more. If he hollers, let him go, Eenie, meenie, minie mo. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe " In historical references of this song, the word "tiger" is replaced by the N-word. If he squeals let him go, Childrens literature and culture helped promote the lie of Black animality by presenting African Americans as apes or monkeys, either via racist caricature or via monkey characters who behaved like they imagined African Americans behaved. Eeny meeny miny moe Catch me If you can dodo, yeah Eeny meeny miny moe Watch out If you can dodo, yeah Eeny meeny miny moe Catch me If Eeny Meeny Miny Moe Steph Moody can't take back Eeny, meeny, miny, moe Eeny, meeny, miny, moe My mind says let you go My mind says let you go But my heart says I don't know My heart "These songs are part of a racist history our nation's history. Later, they can learn where the songs came from, and that lesson will be an important one. The version before this one was much more grim and ghastly. The meaning: . Check it out: England: Weve co-opted and stolen so much of Black culture over the past 400 years that it can be hard to realize sometimes just how many aspects of American life are racist from everyday expressions, hair and clothing style, and even our food. Eenie, meenie, minie mo." An alternate version: "Catch a negro by his toe/ If he hollers make him pay/Twenty dollars every day." Eenie, meenie, miney, moe. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. I shut my eyes to hold my brefSusanna, dont you cry. Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head," Johnson wrote. The classic American version most are familiar with goes like this: "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a tiger by the toe, If he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, mo." We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. Brad Pitt was the only winner of the Aniston-Jolie tabloid battle, Take a mental break with the newest Vox crossword, Make Trump a non person: Rupert Murdochs Ron DeSantis pivot, explained by a legal filing, The Supreme Court will decide if a whole federal agency is unconstitutional, Sign up for the Catch a tiger by the - it has rhythm built into it. I'm gay you're gay he's gay she's. Related entries. The real lyrics, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, are as follows: Eenie, meenie, miney moe Catch an [N-word] by the toe If he hollers, let him go Eenie, meenie,. Ene, tene, mone, mei, In 2004, two African-American sisters filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines after a flight attendant tried to rush them into choosing a seat saying, Eenie, meenie, minie, mo, pick a seat, we gotta go.. The scholars Iona and Peter Opie noted that many variants have been recorded, some with additional words such as " O. U. T. spells out, And out goes she, In the middle of the deep blue sea"[3] or "My mother told me/says to pick the very best one, and that is Y-O-U/you are [not] it";[3] while another source cites "Out goes Y-O-U. Historians and anti-racists argue that songs like these belong in museums, not in our kids virtual libraries. Doo-dah!/ I come down dah wid my hat caved in Doo-dah! The first record of a similar rhyme, called the "Hana, man," is from about 1815, when children in New York City are said to have repeated the rhyme: Henry Carrington Bolton discovered this version to be in the US, Ireland and Scotland in the 1880s but was unknown in England until later in the century. Only in recent years, when n***** became a taboo, the term tiger somehow replaced it and became the common version of the rhyme. The words: "Eenie, meenie, minie mo. The rhyme is used to choose who is it in childrens games. Children often utilize this rhyme to determine whos it, especially during a game of Hiden Seek. The words: " Eenie, meenie, minie mo. "Iniminimanimo" is a 1999 song by Kim Kay. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Is It Called Presidents Day Or Washingtons Birthday? Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe is a rhyme for choosing who's "It" in a game or to choose who goes first. Catch an nigger by the toe. Were not born racist; its something thats taught. Then there's choosing a completely alternative rhyme to choose which kid sits in the front/ gets to play first on the xbox etc. The meaning: The song is about a slave and the death of his master. Eeny meeny miny mo. The rhyme is used by groups of children as a way of selecting someone to take a role that is different from the others. If he hollers, let him go. And that then caused a lot of entomologists to do kind of back formations, and say, well, because it had this racial slur, we think it may have had all of these other, you know, African American origins and all of this stuff with it. I had to sit there and hear their prejudice jokes. Since many similar counting-out rhymes existed earlier, it is difficult to know its exact origin. You could rock, paper, scissors for it, or you could do the following ANNA KULBASHNY: Catch a tiger by the toe EMILE BEAUBIEN: If it hollers, let him go MARTIN: Every kid seems to know this rhyme, or at least a variation of it, including the kids you just heard - 11-year-old Cecilia Clemens and Anna Kulbashny, 10-year-old Emile Beaubien and Sarayu Mudiya, age 6. Ha! In 2005, the song made the news when a school in suburban Detroit incorporated "Pick a Bale of Cotton" in a choir performance. The meaning: The meaning of this rhyme is rooted in the slave trade. Its not hard to see why children would use a playful variation of (essentially) one, two, three to count down their options. It's safe to say that as classic as "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo" is, the centuries-old nursery rhyme no doubt has a haunted past and not so kid-friendly origins. In comparison, "Oh! Some of these are obvious, others not so much! There's also another version that goes. Put the baby on the po. The lyrics of the song include one about the ole massa gone away, and have been terrorizing Black children for centuries. The explanations for the American versions are varied. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe"which can be spelled a number of waysis a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person in games such as tag. Kling klang, This American childrens song was and is a catchy staple. Osse bosse bakke disse, For the most part, schools in the U.S. have gone with the latter. RAPHEL: I think the take away is these words sound really good together. Its well known that theres some challenging language in the Gospel of John,". J.S. intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, "eeny-meeny-miney-mo - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com", "Childhood nursery rhymes and other 'classic' songs you probably never knew were racist", "Missing text can contain the true message", "Jeremy Clarkson: I didn't mean to use N-word video| News | The Week UK", "Jeremy Clarkson 'begs forgiveness' over N-word footage | Media", "Primark pulls "shocking" and "racist" Walking Dead t-shirt from stores after Sheffield man's angry complaint", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe&oldid=1141869865, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, A jocular use of a form of the rhyme by a, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 07:39. For centuries, this has been a popular method to make a hard choice for both children and adults all over the world. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo' was rooted in racism Casimiro PT/Shutterstock Harvard PhD student Adrienne Raphel looked into its origins, and tells NPR's Rachel Martin it's found on playgrounds around the world. Stick, stack, stone dead! We've all taken advantage of the quirky nursery rhyme, "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe." But what does the ditty mean? "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", which can be spelled a number of ways, is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person in games such as tag. Joe Biden is pretty good at being president. ", When it comes to these songs, Shaftel explains that children should be taught the modified versions because they can't grasp the nuances of race just yet and don't have multiple levels of understanding. Also, the word for 'one' in Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Breton is, respectively, 'un' (pronounced 'een'), 'ouyn', 'aon' and 'unan' - all of them sounding not unlike 'een' or 'eeny'. If they squeal make them squeal some more. Sign up for writing inspiration in your email, Harness Your Moxie To Take This Word Of The Day Quiz, Getting Braggadocious: Top Word Trends On Dictionary.com, (one version of several; they also chant the US variation above), There isnt a clearcut explanation as to how these global variations came about and to provide one would require knowing definitively where. The first line of a popular children's counting rhyme. The Dark Origins Of The Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo Nursery Rhyme. In more important choices - selecting who has to ask that grumpy man down the road for their ball back - the one pointed to last drops out and the formula is repeated several times until only one is left. The song can be seen as glorifying and poking fun at slave conditions. This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 16:19. In the early-mid 1800s, the rhyme could be found in Europe and the US. The best known version of the rhyme is the one that is now widely derided as insulting, especially in the USA, where the middle two lines originated: Eena, meena, mina, mo, Catch a n*gger by the toe, If he hollers, let him go, Eena meena, mina, mo.

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