Re: History of "eeny meeny"Posted by Word Camel on February 22, 2002 In Reply to: Re: History of "eeny meeny" posted by The Fallen on February 22, 2002 : : : : : hello all~ : : : : : i'm not sure if I spelled it correctly but I was wondering if anybody knows the origination of eeney meeney miney moe or knows of a different version than: : : : : : eeney meeney miney moe : : : : : thanks! : : : : The version of "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" that was current in playgrounds when I was a child (1960's Britain), replaced the word "tiger" with "nigger". This is of course totally unacceptable by today's standards, given the massively pejorative and racist overtones that the word has gained over the ensuing years. At the time, however, it was used in total innocence. : : : The "n____" version was current among U.S. children
in the 1950s. As I understand it, the word hasn't gained racist overtones since
then: it had them all the time. No, that's not strong enough. Not just overtones.
The whole meaning of the word was just plain racist. What has changed is people's
sensibilities about racism--including the words that help to perpetuate it. (In
the U.S., we had a civil rights movement that got national attention inthe 1960s,
followed by other changes in the culture.) : : Try the link below (http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/133e-scor/nr.html). That page says the chant, in some form, may go back to Druidic sacrifices of children. Another site I found says the old British version had "catch a tinker" and the "n____" version may date only to the beginning of World War II, when GIs arrived in England. : The Druidic comment above is interesting, because I've also heard that (but had forgotten). The Druids were around in Britain before the advent of written language here as far as I am aware - so approximately up to two thousand years ago, with the advent of the Romans starting the downfall of native British Druidic culture. : Given that there are no writings to study from those times, I wonder if anyone knows the Gaelic for "one, two, three, four" or possibly the modern Irish or Welsh? : As a side note, the "n________" word seems not to have had such hateful racist overtones here in the UK until a little more recently - maybe the mid 70's. I would guess that the term started out by being more patronising than insulting - the UK had a widespread colonial past and as such would have 100 years ago definitely considered itself in some way "superior" to any of the territories it conquered - including the inhabitants. I remember my mother (born in the early 1920's) quite innocently using the term "n_____ brown" to describe a chocolate brown colour of fabric or paint during my childhood. However, I am unsure when, where or how the term picked up its undisputed current overtones of hate and detestation. Surely something must have happened, or did some extremist group hijack the word? It probably aquired the connotation in the UK with the start of large scale immigration of West Indians in the 1950's. Britian never boomed to the same extent as the United States did in the post war period. West Indian labour and immigration seemed threatening to Britains who were struggling for jobs and resources (rationing actually carried on into the 50's in the UK). It also has to be said that trade unions played a dispicable role, by campaigning against the recruitment of black workers. In spite of Britian's colonial past, there is no evidence to suggest that racism (expect perhaps anti-Irish prejudice) was wide spread among ordinary folk before the 1950's. Indeed, the warmth and friendliness of British people for Black American GI's caused the American Military to insist that certain restaurants, hotels in pubs impose a colour bar. In Manchester a number of pubs retaliated by imposing a colour bar of their own, allowing ONLY Black GI's into their establishments.
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