![eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show](https://i0.wp.com/chsprospector.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/AnkitaPhoto2.jpg)
You can’t get any more on-point than that, now, can you? I’ve also chosen this rhyme to begin with, because my first illustration of it comes from the earliest known book of nursery rhymes (in English), Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book from around 1744. (To be explicit, for those who do not know, some people know the second line as “ Catch a nigger by the toe.” This is a word I would never want to use, but as a linguist it is important to be honest and accurate about the words people do use, not the words I think they should use.) So no, there’s really nothing problematic about this precise nursery rhyme, but there is a particular other version that is more than merely problematic. I did not even realize that other versions existed until I was an adult, when I discovered that in fact there are seemingly infinite variations in all the parts: the nonsense words, the thing that’s caught, and the response to it. And yes, it was a tiger, with never the slightest suggestion of anything else, and no racist overtones, undertones, or tones of any sort. We used it all the time, occasionally with the addition of My mother says to pick the very best one and you are IT, if we wanted to draw it out. This was the counting-out rhyme of choice for my fellow children and me when I was growing up.
![eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/KMX2FD/borzoi-tri-color-sight-hound-show-dog-profile-portrait-with-black-KMX2FD.jpg)
So the pipe could originally have been a musical instrument (I wish I’d thought of that at the time of my illustration, too!) or could simply have been a later addition. Although we don’t know of earlier origins to the rhyme, that first 1708 version doesn’t include the pipe at all, and smoking was not widespread in Europe until the late sixteenth century. However, the pipe in question may well not have been a smoking pipe anyway. Or what about the bowl of the pipe, which he’s already calling for? That’s a later usage, but still before this nursery rhyme is first attested in 1708. That definition derives from a related word, but came to English by way of Old French. Then there’s the meaning “ball,” as in bowling, the lawn sport bowls, or in some dialects billiard balls or marbles can be called bowls. We still use that meaning in finger-bowl. Bowl also encompassed what we now mostly call basins, so perhaps Old King Cole wanted to wash up after his feast. Thank you for sharing it.And that’s presumably what Old King Cole was calling for in this rhyme.
![eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sFL7olH13Ms/maxresdefault.jpg)
I just wanted you to know that your photo worked a small miracle in my heart. At least that's what I choose to believe is the reason I ended up here at this moment.Īnyway, sorry for hijacking your comments.
#Eenie meenie miney mo four little doggies in a puppy show tv#
So what's the big deal with me being here? Combine your photo and the fact that at the same time I pulled it up Hubby flipped the TV channel and the Wizard of Oz is on, AND at that moment she looked at me and smiled for the first time all day (week?) let God show me that in her heart she does still see the rainbows. I'd like nothing more than to sing to her one more time, but she's 18-1/2 now and won't let me sing to her anymore. Tonight, 7 years later, we are at a hotel for what will likely be our last night together for a long time. How cool that I got yours.Įvery night for the first two years after we adopted her at age 11 I sang The Rainbow Song to my daughter so she could go to sleep. HI! I did the eenie-meenie-miney-mo thing to pick the first SWF post I was going to check out.