Interestingly enough, I just ran across the "3, 6, 9" chant somewhere else in an article on numbers and their symbolism in blues music:
http://www.luckymojo.com/auntsallys.html

Here's a relevant quote:

<cite>Still, there are some parts of the song that are fairly obvious: in the third verse Blake says he was a fool to bet on 3, 6, and 9, the "dirty gig." According to "Aunt Sally's," 3 is "anything filthy" and also "diarrhoea," 3 and 6 in combination are "any dirty filth," and 3 and 9 in combination are "brimstone" (sulphur), a common ingredient, along with "filth" such as feces and urine, in hoodoo spells for crossing and jinxing an enemy.

Taken as a three-number gig, 3, 6, 9 indicates excrement -- and humourously implies that Blake thinks it was wrong to bet on dirty symbolism.

The famously "filthy" 3, 6, 9 gig appears in a number of other songs about policy, most notably "Policy Blues (You Can't 3-6-9 Me)" by Albert Clemens (Adam Wilcox), recorded on April 2nd, 1935 (Bluebird B-5930) and "Policy Wheel Blues" by James Kokomo Arnold, recorded on January 15, 1935 (Decca 7147).</cite>

Still, there are some parts of the song that are fairly obvious: in the third verse Blake says he was a fool to bet on 3, 6, and 9, the "dirty gig." According to "Aunt Sally's," 3 is "anything filthy" and also "diarrhoea," 3 and 6 in combination are "any dirty filth," and 3 and 9 in combination are "brimstone" (sulphur), a common ingredient, along with "filth" such as feces and urine, in hoodoo spells for crossing and jinxing an enemy.

Taken as a three-number gig, 3, 6, 9 indicates excrement -- and humourously implies that Blake thinks it was wrong to bet on dirty symbolism.

The famously "filthy" 3, 6, 9 gig appears in a number of other songs about policy, most notably "Policy Blues (You Can't 3-6-9 Me)" by Albert Clemens (Adam Wilcox), recorded on April 2nd, 1935 (Bluebird B-5930) and "Policy Wheel Blues" by James Kokomo Arnold, recorded on January 15, 1935 (Decca 7147).</cite>

Yes, Marcia, many of the verses I included are, indeed, nothing short of hateful. I certainly would not mention them to my own kids while they are at the age when they might revive these deservedly dormant "rhymes of insult and humiliation" by repeating them. Some antiques shouldn't be passed on to younger generations.

So why on earth did I pass them on to Eratosphere?

My purpose in posting them here was not to preserve such filth for posterity, but to see if others had a glimmer of recognition--"Oh, yeah, we used to say that one, too--how horrifying in retrospect." (I assume that members of this list will not be tempted to start--or resume--giving people wedgies at this late date; or to teach their kids this kind of hatemongering.)

I said above that some antiques shouldn't be passed on to younger generations. I do plan to discuss some of these rhymes with my kids when they are old enough to learn about the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry, and the laws which would have made it impossible for me to marry their Chinese-American father in California only a few decades ago.

The all-purpose rhymes of insult and humiliation are not too distant from the ethnic ones, though; they are all pathetic attempts at self-empowerment by insecure people. They're all shorthand for the same message: "Circumstances or my own shortcomings keep me from the degree of success to which I feel entitled, but I needn't feel inferior if I can demonstrate that someone else is less worthy than I am."

Granted, that's not as catchy as "See my thumb? Gee, you're dumb," but it's one explanation for how so many people could have found Hitler's scapegoating so appealing. He tapped into the powerful urge to feel superior by tearing others down. I do not wish to believe that such a negative urge is universal, but it certainly permeated the childhood culture of many of us. If we are to change that culture for future generations, we need to recognize what is innocent nonsense and what is ugliness in nursery-rhymes' clothing.

I am truly sorry that I did not provide more context for the more hurtful chants and rhymes I shared. My intent wasn't to giggle over what a naughty little "politically incorrect" rascal I was, but to show that, as I said in my original post, political incorrectness does have very real and very nasty consequences. I will attempt to remedy that lack of context in my original posting.

Thank you for having the courage to speak out against hate-mongering when and where you see it.

Julie Stoner

Kevin: Thanks for the 3,6,9 info! It was my experience that it was the black kids who brought these rhyming and clapping games to the playground, along with Double Dutch and speed jumproping, which was all new to the white kids.

Then there were the ones we made up. One was a cruel taunt made to make fun of a humpbacked substitute teacher (kind of a parody of Miss Mary Mack):

Mr. Moore, Moore,
He is a whore, whore,
We kicked his ass, ass
Right out the class, class
We made him cry, cry
He said goodbye, bye
And he didn't come back, back,
Til the Fourth of July, ly!

Another was entirely written by my quiet friend, Vincent. Mr. Harris was the janitor:

6 o'clock in the mornin'
Mr. Harris walkin'around
Silly coffee and Santa Claus
Bread that weight 3000 pounds
Coffee black as tar
Cornbread hard as your shoe
That's the way they feed you
In elementry school

I can still see his pencilled manuscript in my mind. I wonder what ever happened to Vince.

Robin

P.S. OOO, OOO! fivefootone! I DO remember that chant!!!!! You remember "Miss Mary Mack?"
http://www.nwlg.org/pages/resources/...und_rhyme2.htm

P.P.S. For jumping rope, remember this one?

Cinderella
Dressed in yella
Went upstairs
To kiss a fella
Made a mistake
And kissed a snake
How many doctors
Did it take?

1,2,3,4,5,6..........with the rope going faster and faster till you messed up


P.P.P.S. Oh, and this one!

Say, say, say, playmate
come out and play with me
and bring your dollies three,
climb up my apple tree,
slide down my rainbarrel
right out my cellar door
and we'll be jolly friends forever more.

No, no, no playmate,
I cannot play with you
my dollies have the flu,
boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo,
ain't got no rain barrel,
ain't got no cellar door,
but we'll be jolly friends forever more.



[This message has been edited by Robin-Kemp (edited March 29, 2006).]

Here's another skipper:

Dip, dip, dip
My blue ship
Sailing on the water
Like a cup and saucer
Dip, dip, dip

and another:

Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high
We're all little children, we're all going to die
Except C... D...., she's the only one
Turn your face! turn your face! turn your face to the wall again.

We said "tiger." Oh, and instead of "Chinese dancers turn around" it was "Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around" - which I think sounds better anyway. And our Miss Mary Mack had buttons instead of buckles. But Miss Lucy was just the same.

The words to this one varied depending on whether any adults were around:

Lincoln, Lincoln, I been thinkin', what the heck have you been drinkin',
is it whiskey, is it wine, oh my gosh it's turpentine!

Gail, here's a variation on yours, used for taunting rather than counting:

Mary and Johnny, sittin' in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love, then comes marriage
then Johnny Jr. in a baby carriage
suckin' his thumb, wettin' his pants
doin' the hula-hula dance!

There was one about a "Chinaman" sitting on a fence, "tryinna make a dollar outta ninety-nine cents." I can't remember all the words, but something tells me that's just as well!

Here's what you'd sing to a crybaby:

Baby, baby, stick your head in gravy,
wash it off with bubblegum, and go join the navy!

You know, like when you'd all just thrown a bunch of rocks at the fat kid and made him cry.

Ahhh. Good times...


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited April 30, 2006).]

I'll just point out for anyone who hasn't read page one of this thread that Julie was far from the first person to post "offensive" rhymes. I'm just sorry she felt the need to go back and re-order her thread, post a disclaimer etc. Are we censoring our own experiences now???

And as to our own children, let's trust them: we used to say these rhymes and we KNEW they were figurative. You can't censor children's exploration of the world; you can only hope to guide their conclusions and even that not indefinitely.

Kevin, we used to do milk milk lemonade. (Well, I didn't so much, I thought it was gross & a bit juvenile. But everyone else did.) Is it NASTY? I think most kids were pretty comfortable with it. (Bearing in mind the time when my cousin Paul led an expedition across the roof of the pantry, which you could get onto via his window, and which led to the bathroom window, to look at my sister in the bathroom! I also didn't go along on that one, but a few of the others did. Cousins only, I should add; not neighbourhood kids!)

It's also worth realising the extent to which these archaic rhymes (eg the nigger ones) helped us to make sense of the racism we could see around us: pace Robin's childhood observations, I can remember being mystified by racism when I discovered it - and horrified when I encountered racial hatred, which I did in the form of a school friend's parents (unfortunately I was on a trip with them at the time, so I was stuck. Strange holiday.) I can't imagine what would have happened to me at home if I had said the N-word; but then I was far too brooding a child. Maybe I do remember Paul saying it and getting spanked (well, there ya go!).

Rose, we also used to say teddy bear teddy bear. I'm chagrined at the number of these things I hadn't remembered. Here's one I have:

Engine Engine Number 9
Going down Chicago Line
If the train falls off the track
Will you give my money back
O-U-T spells OUT
and OUT go Y-O-U!

KEB

David, you're right about the plague being the inspiration for "Ring around the roses." That's the sores and, since the disease makes a horrible stench, the posies (or any other flower) in the pockets were like an early form of deodorant. Several other nursery rhymes and children's songs were politically inspired: "Humpty Dumpty" was a cannon on a wall in a city the Royalists were defending against Cromwell, "Georgie Porgie" was George IV who had a lot of love affairs, and the song "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" refers to "Bonnie Prince Charlie" Stuart in France.

I think Marcia is right in saying, "Political incorrectness is a lying use of language." The very term politically incorrect seems to be last bastion of incompetence in humor. Person X tries to make a joke that flops. Nobody is laughing. The joke also is racist or sexist. Person X says that the reason no one laughed is because they are all "politically correct" and the joke is really funny but the crowd has all these PC hang-ups, like common courtesy. Is having manners something to be ashamed of?

Robert Meyer

Who said anything was funny? Kevin mentions humour but not in relation to thse counting rhymes. Have you never laughed at a dodgy joke? Have you never thought an unworthy thought? Sorry - we're writers. Our job is to look at the world and record what we see, not what we wish we saw or what we'd prefer.

By all means say you see it and don't like it. Say you see that different races have differently-shaped eyes - it's true - but that observation alone doesn't have inherent meaning.

I say this as a person who isn't racist, who has friends of all races and cultures. I'm the butt of anti-Americanism, to say nothing of sexism, on a daily basis. I would never tolerate a racist remark by one of my kids, and I know they would never think of making one - it just wouldn't make any sense. But I do think I'd let them report something.

The only way to make cultural changes stick is by looking foursquare at what went before.

KEB

PS - By the way, it's also worth remembering that the left, when it goes far enough, becomes more like the right than anything else. Think about the people who try to dictate what other people can say. Taste is one thing; manners is one thing; but castigating someone in public for something they saw fit to talk about isn't manners.

I've come to this one just lately.....forgive me if these are already posted and I've somehow missed these two.....I don't think they're here yet, but I somehow can't imagine that they've been forgotten.

This one involved two children facing one another and joining hands with a third child locked inside their arms. While singing the song the two holding childlren would swing their arms back and forth with the third enclosed and (if done correctly) getting a bad case of whiplash.

"London Bridges falling down
falling down
falling down
London Bridges falling down
My fair lady.

Take the keys and lock her up
lock her up
lock her up
take the keys and lock her up
My fair lady."

Off to prison she must go
she must go
she must to
off to prison she must go
my fair lady."

And my own personal favorite (said with voice dripping sarcasm) which is best done while, of course, jumping on the bed.

10 Little monkeys jumping on a bed,
one jumped up and bumped his head,
Mom called the Doctor and the doctor said
........"no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

9 Little monkeys jumping on a bed,
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
......."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

8 Little monkeys jumping on a bed.
One jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
......"no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

7 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

6 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

5 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

4 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

3 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

2 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

1 Little monkeys jumping on a bed
one jumped up and bumped his head.
Mom called the Doctor and the Doctor said
....."no more monkeys jumping on a bed."

My chiildren seldom made it past "7 little monkeys" before one, two, or all three of them would end up bumping his own head - either on a ceiling fixture or the floor... One of 'em actually ended up breaking an arm. I was a terrible mother, wasn't I? sigh

Dear Katy,
Since I was the one who raised the matter, I take it you are writing to me here, though I wonder what you know about my politics:

If you re-read what I wrote (there are two posts), you'll see that I did not ask for these rhymes to be squelched.

If leaving the important things behind--like speaking out against thoughtlessness--is required for participation in this forum, please add an item to the rules, so the next person who is tempted to speak up understands the prohibition.


Marcia