Category Archives: Game

Children’s Rhyme

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beverly Hills, CA
Performance Date: March 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Children’s Rhyme

“Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear

One step, two step, tickle her under there”

I learned this rhyme when I was very young, around three years old from my first nanny who was British but lived in the United States with me and my family. Whenever I was getting restless or was bored, which was often considering how young I was, my nanny would sit me down and say this rhyme. This rhyme was performed in a certain way however. She would sit me in her lap and I would give her my right or left palm face up. She would then recite the words in a sort of sing-song voice while drawing an imaginary circle around my palm. Then when she said “one step, two step” she would slowly crawl her fingers up my arm and then tickle me under my arm. It would always result in me laughing hysterically and then asking her to do it over and over again.

She told me that this was strictly a children’s rhyme and was taught to her by her mother. While I have never heard of anyone else using this rhyme or found anyone that has heard it, I believe that this was probably a rhyme more popular in England, where my nanny was originally from, and was used in order to entertain children in a very easy, childish way.  I am not sure where else this rhyme would be used other than around children although I do think it necessary for their to be an adult to recite the poem in order to have the same affect it does.

I believe this children’s rhyme, while no real significant meaning may come out of it, is important nonetheless because it was apart of my childhood and I will always remember being comforted by hearing that rhyme. To me, it was a special rhyme just shared between me and my nanny and even though I had one other nanny try this rhyme with me, it did not hold its same meaning because the way my previous nanny had done it was the original way I had learned it and thus had special meaning for me.

Children’s Game/Rhyme

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Calabasas, CA
Performance Date: February 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Children’s game/rhyme

Crack an egg on your head and the yolk runs down (x2)

Spiders crawling up your back, they bite you, they bite you, the blood runs down (x2)

Stab a knife in your back and the blood rolls down (x2)

Cool breeze

Tight squeeze

Now you’ve got the chillies

Her older sister taught this rhyme to her when she was eleven. Her sister would start to give her a back rub and then occasionally would start speaking this rhyme. Her sister meant to make it scare her in the end but her sister had learned it as a fun game to play with friends. One person would put their hands on another person’s back and then slowly recite this rhyme, imitating each word with an action. So you would imitate cracking an egg on that person’s head or blow a cold breeze on the person’s neck. The end result was to give someone Goosebumps and the chills. Kyrsti believed that this game was meant to just be a silly way of scaring a younger child or just having some fun with friends.

Kyrsti described how each of the imitated motions are meant to create visuals in the person’s mind. Because each of the phrases are frightening, the rhyme is meant to evoke fear. Kyrsti described that she experienced this fear when she was younger as a recipient of the rhyme. As she got older, however, she did this game on younger kids, passing along the tradition. She believes that the game itself is not meant to be overtly violent, but considering the words and phrases, she does believe it was meant to introduce her to a little bit more graphic things in life. She also thinks that this is a rhyme that is passed down by family members, who in a sense, by saying this rhyme and performing it on their younger siblings, is trying to maintain or show some sort of dominance over their younger sibling.

While I agree that the rhyme is meant to open up new ideas towards “violence” for kids around Kyrsti’s age back then, I do not agree that this was meant to be used to show dominance. I think it was simply just used in order to slightly scare a child and yet at the same time entertain them. I have heard this rhyme many times, and in my middle school is was very prevalent. However, we never found it to be frightening and everyone I knew who did this found it completely amusing. I believe it is here the distinction is made. Depending on the person who is the recipient, it is up to that person to determine whether they think the rhyme is harmless or actually causes some sort of distress.

Car Game

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: West Covina, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Car game

Whenever you ran a yellow light, everyone in the car had to kiss their hand and then touch the top of the car whether you were driving or just a passenger. Whoever was the last to touch the top of the car lost and was ridiculed mercilessly by everyone else in the car followed by a few light punches to the arm. Then if there was a car with one head light out, whoever saw it first had to scream “sex” and whoever said it first gets to choose who in the car they want to kiss.

Alex doesn’t remember who initiated this game but he remembers learning it from a male friend of his when he was attending UCSB. One day he was in the car with three other people, 2 girls and 2 guys, and they ran a yellow light and three of the people did the game while Alex didn’t do anything, not knowing how to play. They teased him and then punched him. Since that day, he has taught many people the game and has met other people who have played the game or at least heard of it.

When Alex told me this game, I had heard of it but a different version of it. In my version, instead of saying “sex,” we just looked for cars with one light out and if you saw one, you had to yell “car” and then whoever was the last to yell car had to get out and run around the car once before the driver locked the doors after counting to five. While each version of the game has a different outcome, the general idea is to embarrass someone in the car and make them do something they might not necessarily want to do.

Alex believed that the game is relatively harmless and I completely agree however, I found it interesting to note that this game is very similar to the game I know, but you just kiss your hand and hit the car and that’s it. But in Alex’s game, it goes much farther. When I then realized that he was taught the game by a male, it occurred to me that it was the exact same game but the guy who taught it to him was around seventeen when he had learned the game and it was clearly a game that was elaborated on in order to fulfill the desires of guys in a car if they were with attractive girls. This specific game and how it was changed shows how just gender can change a folk game and make it into something new.

Children’s Game

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County, CA
Performance Date: March 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Children’s rhyme

Miss Mary Mac, Mac, Mac

All dressed in black, black, black.

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back.

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For 50 cents, cents, cents.

To see the elephants, elephants, elephants

Jump over the fence, fence, fence.

They jumped so high, high, high

They reached the sky, sky, sky

They never came back, back, back

Till the 4th of July, July, July.

Claire doesn’t remember when she first heard this rhyme but she does remember she was fairly young, probably around seven or eight years old, when she learned the song in its entirety. She first learned the full song when she entered fourth grade and met everyone in her class on the first day. She described how on the first day of fourth grade the teacher sat everyone down, taught them the rhyme and then paired everyone up over and over to practice it. She doesn’t think there is any real significance behind it except for it being a childhood game that helped her meet everyone in her class and really bond. When she thinks back on it, it reminds her of her childhood and fond memories of playing with her friends and meeting so many new people.

Claire believes that there may not be any real significance behind this rhyme; however, it was one that every child in her school knew and has been passed down in her school every year. She described how each year, whoever entered fourth grade, would spend the first day learning this song. Claire believes it was meant to be a bonding experience for everyone and to get everyone to know each other better. She remembers how on her first day she met some of her best friends by being paired up with tem and reciting this rhyme. She said it was such a good bonding experience because many people had heard the rhyme but not in its entirety so by being paired up and learning the rhyme in its entirety, you got to help each other out and really form strong friendships. She also pointed out how it taught her to be patient, especially if one of her partners wasn’t picking up on it as quickly.

While I believe that this is a normal childhood rhyme, it is interesting how a very popular rhyme that is known by many people all over, was held so special in her school. But this story proves that folklore is used to create social bonds between people because you create this special connection when you are able to share a song, story or joke with someone because you learned it together and thus is forever engrained in your brain. This story proves how Folklore can take something as mundane as a children’s rhyme and make it into an experience where an entire class of forty students connects and forever stays connected through that rhyme.

Annotation: This rhyme can be found in the book called Miss Mary Mac All Dressed in Black: Tongue Twisters, Jump-Rope Rhymes and Other Children’s Lore from New England (Paperback), a book that highlights the most popular rhymes, riddles and tongue twisters for kids.

Hastings, Scott E. Miss Mary Mac All Dressed in Black: Tongue Twisters,

Jump-Rope Rhymes and Other Children’s Lore from New England (Paperback).

August House, 1990. 2 May 2008 <http://books.google.com/

books?id=KB6vAAAACAAJ&dq=miss+mary+mac>.

Car Game

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beverly Hills, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2008
Primary Language: English

Car game

Game: When running through a yellow stoplight, kiss your hand and touch it to the top of

your car

I learned this trick from one of my friends in high school, around when we both started driving, so around sixteen. We were driving to school one day and we ran a yellow light and she kissed her hand and hit the top of the car. When I didn’t repeat what she had done she seemed to get very upset and I asked her why. She said her mom had told her since she was a child that if you didn’t do something to recognize that you had ran a yellow light, you would have bad luck, most likely a car accident of some sort. Not being a very superstitious person, I didn’t believe it, however, I ended up getting in the habit of doing it and since have told many people the same story thus convincing myself it was true.

My friend believed her mother told her that story in order to make her more aware of driving. She believes that by her mother telling her to do an action every time you run a yellow light, it could make you more cautious about running a light for fear of forgetting to perform the action and thus in turn having bad luck. While I definitely do not believe that not performing the action will cause bad luck, I agree that performing this action does make you more aware of your driving. There have been many times where I’ve ended up running a yellow light and fear has stricken me because I am scared of getting a ticket. However, when I was discussing this particular game with my friend Mandy, she feels that the game is dangerous itself because you’re choosing to take a hand off the wheel while simultaneously speeding up to run the yellow light. I agree that it could be perceived as dangerous since you would be removing one of your hands from the wheel, but I think sometimes in our society, having bad luck upon you instead of just taking the small risk in order to prevent bad luck seems to prevail and that’s why I think this car game has been spread around so much.