@craigthom I’m just saying it never was, and still isn’t part of my world. It’s always been “tiger by the toe.” So no, I’m not going to get all fake offended at this thing.
But I’m done talking about it, so you can have the last, outraged word on the subject.
I’m a southerner (FW, TX) who grew up on the 1950-60’s.
As kids we all did the “tiger” version.
But we all knew the other version; it was pretty commonplace to hear it. We wouldn’t have done the older, racist version, in my group of friends; our parents (almost all political conservatives) would have gone berserk at us if we had. Hearing racist words at that time was common, but their use in my world was considered “lower class trash” and seem as incredibly rude.
So perhaps one’s associations to that rhyme vary by the era and location where one grew up.
I suspect most people from the south and from the baby boom years, coming across that rhyme with the blanked out place where “tiger” or “n*****” would be, would automatically think of the racist version and cringe.
From Wikipedia:
Some older versions of this rhyme had the word n***** instead of tiger:
Eeny, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a n***** by the toe;
If he hollers let him go,
Eena, meena, mina, mo.[3]
This version was similar to that reported by Henry Carrington Bolton as the most common version among American schoolchildren in 1888.[13] It was used in the chorus of Bert Fitzgibbon’s 1906 song “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo”:
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,
Catch a n***** by his toe,
If he won’t work then let him go;
Skidum, skidee, skidoo.
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.[14]
It was also used by Rudyard Kipling in his “A Counting-Out Song”, from Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, published in 1935.[15] This may have helped popularise this version in the United Kingdom where it seems to have replaced all earlier versions until the late twentieth century.[3]
Growing up, I heard both versions pretty frequently.
Similar counting rhymes have a long history; wikipedia recounts very old Dutch versions (without racist words)
There is also a rich history of the rhyme (various versions), being used in literature, plays, tv and film, up thru the 1950’s.
The rhyme appears towards the end of 1949 British black comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets. The use of the word n***** was censored for the American market, being replaced by sailor.
I’m glad the the racist version is next-to-unknown, for people younger than baby boomers.
I’m glad the the racist version is next-to-unknown, for people younger
than baby boomers.
This.
I was born in '69, grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and don’t ever recall hearing the racist version. While I consider myself reasonably worldly and would have expected to know more about this, I feel I should be happy that I was raised in an environment where I wasn’t exposed to it.
@craigthom yes but a lot of people ,like me, had no knowledge nor had ever heard the racist version. I personally never knew this was racist. Never knew it was anything non tiger.
@f00l My grandmother was from depression era rural Alabama, and sort of racist without malice. I liken it to this, I love dogs, love them better than humans, but I don’t believe they can be taught to read or do figures. It’s beyond their capacity. My grandmother was unfailingly kind to people of color, never had the sort of nasty things to say about them I heard from others. But she genuinely believed that they shouldn’t be in school, that they had no capacity for learning. They’d be better served letting them learn a trade. It was a kind of racism that was especially hard to combat.
She used the first version. Growing up I started hearing the “tiger” version (and also “pickle”) and it always sort of needled me. Tigers and pickles don’t holler and pickles don’t have toes. I never used the racist version but I didn’t use the others either.
@f00l I’m really close to being a baby boomer,missed it by like two years and I grew up in the South…I never heard that version from anyone until I was an adult and read about it on the internet, some story similar to this…I was flabbergasted.
@f00l So was this something that started out innocently and then was coopted by idiots and changed, or did it start out wrong and then it was changed to a nicer version. Trying to figure it out from the great information you provided but not sure.
@f00l You sir (I’m assuming) , were raised by good hearted, well informed, and genuinely decent people. Instead of going right along with what was probably popular in their area during that era; they went against the grain and it sounds like their associations did the same. Therefore, they didn’t pass that racist mentality down the line to you. That crap has to be taught (and learned) but also has to be maintained as a way of thinking. It is not a natural inclination… I really appreciated your candor with your comment here and just wanted to let you know. You seem like the kind of person who I could sit down and have an open minded conversation with about everything that’s wrong with this world. Peace be with you, and best wishes to you and yours going into this new year!
I still cringe at the memory of some things I heard from my grandmother’s generation (who were of age to fight in WWI. We cringed back then, in the 50’s (though one didn’t correct one’s grandparents)
My parents and their friends would have none of that. I think the shared experiences of the depression and then of WWII (Even tho the services had segregation, everyone suffered so much. Shared burdens) made a big difference for my parents and their age group.
When LBJ was pushing for Civil Rights legislation, he said, privately, something to the effect of :“this will cost the Democratic Party the southern states for a decade”.
He underestimated.
(although how people vote as individuals, and individual political views, come from a complex process).
I just hope all these racial divides and other divides are, (slowly, unfortunately), going going gone.
Someday. Someday.
When no one cares who people marry, and everyone’s close friends are from every group imaginable, then perhaps we will be where we need to be.
@lepak47 Yep, my mother, the sweetest person you’d ever meet, was raised on a farm in rural Texas. Similar to @moondrake 's story, my mother was not maliciously racist, but was ignorant about people of color, and she had been taught a special name for Brazil Nuts that she eventually realized was wrong. “Hey Mom: whispering the ‘special’ name doesn’t make it okay to say.”
I knew the N word version of the tiger song as a child, but hated that some idiot made it up.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/catch-a--by-the-toe-email-dude-that-still-plays-here-in-the-south
@jezhicka As far as I’m concerned, just you. I never heard of the alternate version of “tiger by the toe” before.
@therealjrn I don’t think having heard the cleaned up version magically erases knowledge of the original.
@craigthom I’m just saying it never was, and still isn’t part of my world. It’s always been “tiger by the toe.” So no, I’m not going to get all fake offended at this thing.
But I’m done talking about it, so you can have the last, outraged word on the subject.
@therealjrn I’m right there with you. It kind of surprises me that I had no idea this was something racial. It was always tigers to me.
@cinoclav
@therealjrn
I’m a southerner (FW, TX) who grew up on the 1950-60’s.
As kids we all did the “tiger” version.
But we all knew the other version; it was pretty commonplace to hear it. We wouldn’t have done the older, racist version, in my group of friends; our parents (almost all political conservatives) would have gone berserk at us if we had. Hearing racist words at that time was common, but their use in my world was considered “lower class trash” and seem as incredibly rude.
So perhaps one’s associations to that rhyme vary by the era and location where one grew up.
I suspect most people from the south and from the baby boom years, coming across that rhyme with the blanked out place where “tiger” or “n*****” would be, would automatically think of the racist version and cringe.
From Wikipedia:
Growing up, I heard both versions pretty frequently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe
Similar counting rhymes have a long history; wikipedia recounts very old Dutch versions (without racist words)
There is also a rich history of the rhyme (various versions), being used in literature, plays, tv and film, up thru the 1950’s.
I’m glad the the racist version is next-to-unknown, for people younger than baby boomers.
@f00l
This.
I was born in '69, grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and don’t ever recall hearing the racist version. While I consider myself reasonably worldly and would have expected to know more about this, I feel I should be happy that I was raised in an environment where I wasn’t exposed to it.
@craigthom yes but a lot of people ,like me, had no knowledge nor had ever heard the racist version. I personally never knew this was racist. Never knew it was anything non tiger.
@CaptAmehrican same here
@f00l My grandmother was from depression era rural Alabama, and sort of racist without malice. I liken it to this, I love dogs, love them better than humans, but I don’t believe they can be taught to read or do figures. It’s beyond their capacity. My grandmother was unfailingly kind to people of color, never had the sort of nasty things to say about them I heard from others. But she genuinely believed that they shouldn’t be in school, that they had no capacity for learning. They’d be better served letting them learn a trade. It was a kind of racism that was especially hard to combat.
She used the first version. Growing up I started hearing the “tiger” version (and also “pickle”) and it always sort of needled me. Tigers and pickles don’t holler and pickles don’t have toes. I never used the racist version but I didn’t use the others either.
Tigers don’t holler?
hol·ler
ˈhälər/Submit
informal
verb
1.
give a loud shout or cry.
"he hollers when he wants feeding"
synonyms: shout, yell, cry, cry out, vociferate, call, call out, roar, bellow, bawl, bark, howl
@f00l I’m really close to being a baby boomer,missed it by like two years and I grew up in the South…I never heard that version from anyone until I was an adult and read about it on the internet, some story similar to this…I was flabbergasted.
@f00l So was this something that started out innocently and then was coopted by idiots and changed, or did it start out wrong and then it was changed to a nicer version. Trying to figure it out from the great information you provided but not sure.
@mehbee
I’m not certain.
Counting rhymes such as we use originated in Europe, various languages. I’m sure we imported them.
The n-word was in use in England way back when. So the rhyme may have become racist either there or here.
I don’t know.
Since Kipling used it … The racist version was obviously “around”.
@f00l You sir (I’m assuming) , were raised by good hearted, well informed, and genuinely decent people. Instead of going right along with what was probably popular in their area during that era; they went against the grain and it sounds like their associations did the same. Therefore, they didn’t pass that racist mentality down the line to you. That crap has to be taught (and learned) but also has to be maintained as a way of thinking. It is not a natural inclination… I really appreciated your candor with your comment here and just wanted to let you know. You seem like the kind of person who I could sit down and have an open minded conversation with about everything that’s wrong with this world. Peace be with you, and best wishes to you and yours going into this new year!
@Solbrutha
I still cringe at the memory of some things I heard from my grandmother’s generation (who were of age to fight in WWI. We cringed back then, in the 50’s (though one didn’t correct one’s grandparents)
My parents and their friends would have none of that. I think the shared experiences of the depression and then of WWII (Even tho the services had segregation, everyone suffered so much. Shared burdens) made a big difference for my parents and their age group.
When LBJ was pushing for Civil Rights legislation, he said, privately, something to the effect of :“this will cost the Democratic Party the southern states for a decade”.
He underestimated.
(although how people vote as individuals, and individual political views, come from a complex process).
I just hope all these racial divides and other divides are, (slowly, unfortunately),
going going gone.
Someday. Someday.
When no one cares who people marry, and everyone’s close friends are from every group imaginable, then perhaps we will be where we need to be.
this is the first i heard of the tiger version. tiger by the tail maybe. now grandpa use to be quite embarrassing when brazil nuts were in the stores.
@lepak47 Definitely never headed a version about Brazil nuts
@lepak47 Yep, my mother, the sweetest person you’d ever meet, was raised on a farm in rural Texas. Similar to @moondrake 's story, my mother was not maliciously racist, but was ignorant about people of color, and she had been taught a special name for Brazil Nuts that she eventually realized was wrong. “Hey Mom: whispering the ‘special’ name doesn’t make it okay to say.”
I knew the N word version of the tiger song as a child, but hated that some idiot made it up.