Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe - Controversial Version

Controversial Version

Older versions of this rhyme had the word nigger (instead of tiger) and are less popular now because of the waning public acceptability of the word, including:

Eeny, meena, mina, mo,

Catch a nigger by the toe;

If he hollers let him go,

Eena, meena, mina, mo.

This version was similar to that reported as the most common version among American schoolchildren in 1888. It was used in the chorus of Bert Fitzgibbon's 1906 song "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo":

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,

Catch a nigger 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.

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. This may have helped popularise this version in the United Kingdom where it seems to have replaced all earlier versions until late twentieth century.

Iona and Peter Opie pointed out in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes that the word "nigger" was common in American folk-lore, but unknown in any English traditional rhyme or proverb. This, combined with evidence of various other versions of the rhyme in the UK that pre-date this version, would seem to suggest that this version originated in America, although the apparently American word 'holler' was first recorded in written form in the fourteenth century, whereas the words 'niger' or 'nigger' were first seen in the sixteenth century in Britain, with their current disparaging meaning (O.E.D.). The 'olla' and 'toe' are found as nonsense words in some nineteenth century versions of the rhyme, and it could possibly be that the original 'Where do all the Frenchmen Go?' (probably originating during one of the periods of Anglo-French warfare) was later on replaced by the controversial version in the States, using some of the nonsense words.