Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Noun

A children's counting-out game.


Eeny, meeny, miny, moe which can be spelled a number of ways, is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person to be "it" for games (such as tag) and similar purposes such as counting out a child that has to be stood down from a group of children as part of a playground game.

It is one of a large group of similar 'Counting-out rhymes' where the child pointed-to by the chanter on the last syllable is 'counted out'.

The rhyme has existed in various forms since well before 1820 and is common in many languages with similar-sounding nonsense syllables.

Since many similar counting rhymes existed earlier, it is difficult to ascertain this rhyme's exact origin.


Origins

The first American record of a similar rhyme is from about 1815, when children in New York are said to have repeated the rhyme:

Hana, man, mona, mike;
Barcelona, bona, strike;
Hare, ware, frown, vanac;
Harrico, warico, we wo, wac.

The rhyme seems to have been unknown in England among collectors until the late nineteenth century, although it was found by Henry Bolton in the US, Ireland and Scotland in the 1880s. He also found a similar rhyme in German:

Ene, tene, mone, mei,
Pastor, lone, bone, strei,
Ene, fune, herke, berke,
Wer? Wie? Wo? Was?

The most common English form seems to be:

Eena, Meena, Mona, My,
Barcelona, Bona, stry,
Air, ware, frum, dy,
Aracy, baraca, we, wo, wack

but there is a well-entrenched version, collected from Durham:

Eena meena mina mo,
Where do all the Frenchmen go?
To the East and to the West,
To the bonny birdie's nest;
Apples in the garden,
fishes in the sea,
if you want a pretty girl
please choose me!

Variations of this rhyme, with the nonsense/counting first line have been collected since the 1820s, such as this Scottish one:

Hickery Pickery, pease scon
Where will this young man gang?
He'll go east, he'll go west,
he'll go to the crow's nest.
Hickery Pickery, Hickery Pickery

More recognizable as a variation, which even includes the 'toe' and 'olla' from Kipling's version is

Eenie, Meenie, Tipsy, toe;
Olla bolla Domino,
Okka, Pokka dominocha,
Hy! Pon! Tush!

which was one of many variants of 'counting out Rhymes' collected by Bolton in 1888.

A Cornish version runs:

Ena, mena, mona, mite,
Bascalora, bora, bite,
Hugga, bucca, bau,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread.
Stick, stock, stone dead - OUT.

Another possibility is that the British occupiers of India brought a doggerel version of an Indian children's rhyme used in the game of carom billiards:

ubi eni mana bou,
baji neki baji thou,
elim tilim latim gou.

Another version of this type of rhyme heard sung in English by children in Bombay in 1986 and 1987 and written down by Glen Dryhurst during several business trips was:

Eena, meena, maca-roni,
dee, dye, domi-nony,
It's half past ten,
an old lady came,
she called my name,
chick-a-dye,
chick-a-dye
is my name.

On saying that last word, the child pointed to was either: "in", "out" or "it" as the case may be.

One theory about the origins of the rhyme is that it is descended from Old English or Welsh counting, similar to the old Shepherd's count "Yan Tan Tethera" or the Cornish "Eena, mea, mona, mite".

There are similar examples of children's rhymes that were collected in England that are more obviously counting rhymes up to ten, such as 'Ya, ta, tethera, pethera, pip, Slata, lata, covera, dovera, dick'.

David Zincavage asserts that the origin is Scottish and posits that the first line of the verse is a corruption of Inimicus animo, a Latin phrase that translates as "enemy of the soul."

The second line uses "nigger" and this goes to early depictions of the devil as black, as opposed to the modern red; we still have references to darkness as being evil.

If you catch the devil by the toe, it won't cause his cloven hoof any pain. If, instead, you've pinched a human's toe instead, he'll yelp, and since you have made a mistake in identifying him, you should release him.

There are considerable variations in the lyrics of the rhyme, including from early twentieth century in the United States of America:

Eeny, meeny, miny moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe.
If he hollers make him pay,
Fifty dollars every day.

A distinct version of the rhyme in the United Kingdom, collected in the 1960s, is:

Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo.
Put the baby on the po.
When he's done,
Wipe his bum.
And tell his mother what he's done.

Versions collected in New Zealand in 2002 include:

Eeny, meeny, miny mangi,
Catch a mangi by the tangi.
If he squeals, steal his wheels,
Eeny, meeny, miny mangi.

And:

Eeny, meeny, miny mit,
Catch your girlfriend by the tit.
If she slips, kiss her lips,
Eeny, meeny, miny mit.

source: wikipedia, wiktionary

Hardhearted

hardhearted (comparative more hardhearted, superlative most hardhearted)

1. Lacking in compassion; cold and pitiless.

Derivations

• hardheartedly (adv.)
• hardheartedness (n.)

Antonyms

• softhearted
• tender-hearted

source: wiktionary

Beat around the bush

Verb

to beat around the bush (third-person singular simple present beats around the bush, present participle beating around the bush, simple past and past participle beaten around the bush)

1. (idiomatic) To treat a topic, but omit its main points, often intentionally.
2. (idiomatic) To delay or avoid talking about something difficult or unpleasant.

Please stop beating around the bush and tell me what the problem is!

Synonyms with beat around the bush

• pussyfoot
• prevaricate
• waffle

Antonyms with beat around the bush

• cut to the chase
• get on with it
• get to the point

Alternative forms

• beat about the bush

source: wiktionary

To the nines

To the nines is an English idiom meaning to perfection or to the highest degree.

In modern English usage, the phrase most commonly appears as dressed to the nines or dressed up to the nines.


Origin

The phrase is said to be Scottish in origin. The earliest written example of the phrase is from the 1719 Epistle to Ramsay by the Scottish poet William Hamilton:

The bonny Lines therein thou sent me,

How to the nines they did content me.

Robert Burns' Poem on Pastoral Poetry, published posthumously in 1800, also uses the phrase:

Thou paints auld nature to the nines,

In thy sweet Caledonian lines.

Dressed to the nines.


Adjective

dressed to the nines (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Very fancily or formally dressed; wearing very showy or splendid clothing.

• He arrived at the gala, dressed to the nines in his top hat and tails.
• 1976, Tim Rice, Don't Cry For Me Argentina

All you will see is a girl you once knew, although she's dressed up to the nines, at sixes and sevens with you.

References

Dressed to the nines in Michael Quinion, Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds, 2004.


source: wikipedia, wiktionary

Custom

Etymology

From Middle English custume, from Anglo-Norman custume, from Old French coustume, from Vulgar Latin *cōnsuētūmen, from Latin cōnsuētūdinem, accusative singular of cōnsuētūdō (“custom, habit”), from cōnsuēscō (“accustom, habituate”), from con- (“with”) + suēscō (“become used or accustomed”), inchoative form of sueō (“I am accustomed”), perhaps from suus (“one's own, his own”); see consuetude. Displaced native Middle English wune, wone (“custom, habit, practice”) (from Old English wuna (“custom, habit, practice, rite”)), Middle English side, sid (“custom”) (from Old English sidu, sido (“custom, note, manner”)), Middle English cure (“custom, choice, preference”) (from Old English cyre (“choice, choosing, free will”)).

Noun

custom (plural customs)

1.  Frequent repetition of the same act; way of acting common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; usage; method of doing or living.

• And teach customs which are not lawful. Acts xvi. 21. 
• Moved beyond his custom, Gama said. Alfred Tennyson. 
• A custom More honored in the breach than the observance. Shakespeare 

2.  Habitual buying of goods; practice of frequenting, as a shop, manufactory, etc., for making purchases or giving orders; business support.  

3. (law) Long-established practice, considered as unwritten law, and resting for authority on long consent; usage. See Usage, and Prescription.  

4. (obsolete) Familiar acquaintance; familiarity.  

5. The customary toll, tax, or tribute.  

6. created under particular specifications, specialized, unique, custom-made  

Synonyms

• fashion 
• habit 
• wone 
• practice 
• usage
• wont

 Adjective

custom (not comparable)

1. made in a different way from usual, specially to fit one's needs

• My feet are as big as powerboats, so I need custom shoes.   

Verb

custom (third-person singular simple present customs, present participle customing, simple past and past participle customed)

1.  (obsolete) (transitive) To make familiar; to accustom. 
2. (obsolete) (transitive) To supply with customers. 
3. (obsolete) (transitive) To pay the customs of. 
4. (obsolete) (intransitive) To have a custom. 

• On a bridge he custometh to fight. Edmund Spenser.

Event, agenda and function

event

Etymology

From Latin ēventus (“an event, occurrence”), from ēveniō (“to happen, to fall out, to come out”), from ē (“out of, from”), short form of ex, + veniō (“come”); see venture, and compare advent, convent, invent, etc., convene, evene, etc.

Noun

event (plural events)

1. An occurence; something that happens.
2. An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases) - 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.3.3: - hard beginnings have many times prosperous events [...]. - In the event, he turned out to have what I needed anyway.
   

   (physics) A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.

   (computing) A possible action that the user can perform that is monitored by an application or the operating system (event listener).  When an event occurs an event handler is called which performs a specific task.

   (probability theory) A set of some of the possible outcomes; a subset of the sample space. 



 

 

agenda

Etymology

From Latin agenda, substantive use of the neuter plural of agendus (“which ought to be done”), future passive participle (gerundive) of agō (“I do, act, make”).

Noun

agenda (plural agendas)

1. (now rare) Plural form of agendum.
2. A temporarily organized plan for matters to be attended to.
3. A list of matters to be taken up (as at a meeting).

Usage notes

The word agenda is the Latin plural of agendum, but in English the word agenda is taken as a singular, and item on the agenda used for individual things in the list.

Synonyms

• (temporarily organized plan): docket, schedule

function

Etymology

From Middle French fonction, from Old French function, from Latin functio genituve functionis "performance, execution", from Latin functus past participle of fungor "perform, execute, discharge".

Noun

function (plural functions)

1. What something does or is used for.
2. A professional or official position.
3. An official or social ocassion.
4. A relation where one thing is dependent on another for its existence, value, or significance.
5. (mathematics) A relation in which each element of the domain is associated with exactly one element of the codomain.
6. (computing) A routine that receives zero or more arguments and may return a result.
7. (biology) The physiological activity of an organ or body part.
8. (chemistry) The characteristic behavior of a chemical compound.
9. (anthropology) The role of a social practice in the continued existence of the group.

Synonyms

• (what something does or is used for): aim, intention, purpose, role, use

• (professional or official position): occupation, office, part, role

• (official or social occasion): affair, occasion, social occasion, social function

• (analysis: many-to-one relation): many-to-one map, many-to-one mapping, mathematical function, operation, transformation

• (computing: routine that returns a result): procedure, routine, subprogram, subroutine

Hypernyms

(mathematics): relation

Phrases and sayings

1. Phrase in the offing meaning just entering or leaving a port.

• e.g They could see that the ship was waiting in the offing.

2. Say cheese was devised by the American politician Joseph Davies. Say cheese use imperatively to elicit a smile from someone for a photography by their saying 'cheese' (the vowel of which, when pronounced as is usual in English, forces a somewhat smile-shaped mouth).

3. Spruce up means:

1. To dress or arrange smartly, elegantly and neatly.
2. To refresh, revamp; to freshen or improve something, especially its appearance.

4. The hair of the dog refers to the belief that drinking alcohol will cure a hangover.

5. The expression Bunny boiler derives from the 1987 thriller film Fattal Attraction directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer.

Bunny boiler was inspired by a scene in the movie where a scorned woman (Glenn Close), seeking revenge on her ex-lover (Michael Douglas), places his beloved family pet in a pot of boiling water when he is away from the house.

Bunny boiler meaning an obsessive and dangerous former lover who stalks the person who spurned them.  Bunny boiler also meaning an excessively obsessive girlfriend or boyfriend who reacts in an extreme way to ending a relationship.

6. Flotsam and jetsam were

1. The debris remaining after a shipwreck.
2. The collection of miscellaneous items or fragments of little importance.
3. People considered to be of little worth
• e.g. The flotsam and jetsam of society were at the night club. 

7. A dead ringer was originally a horse substituted in order to gain advantage in a race. Dead ringer also meaning someone or something that very closely resembles another; someone or something easily mistaken for another.

• e.g He is a dead ringer for his grandfather at that age.

8. Oranges got their name from the Middle Eastern name 'norange'. Oranges originated in South-east Asia and when they arrived in Persia and Spain they were given the names 'narang' and 'naranja' respectively. As they got nearer to England, and hence nearer to requiring a name in English, they lost the 'n'. This on happened their journey through France, where they were known as 'pomme d'orenge'.

9. Take the gilt off the gingerbread meaning remove an item's most attractive qualities.

10. Dressed to the nines' derives from dressing well, in one's best clothes.

11. Umbrage was a shady area.

12. Beyond the pale derives from the outer limits of a settlement. The phrase inspired from pale, a jurisdiction under a given authority; often held by one nation in another country, hence suggesting that anything outside their control was uncivilised. It was in use by the mid-17th century. The phrase may be a reference to the general sense of boundary, but is often understood to refer to the English Pale in Ireland. In the nominally English territory of Ireland, only the pale fell genuinely under the authority of English law, hence the terms within the Pale and beyond the pale.

13. Lock, stock and barrel derives from the parts of a flintlock musket. The phrase meaning a thing in its entirety, with nothing omitted.

• They want to buy the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel.

14. The first person described as a living legend was Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, wtiter and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night. An Anglican, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse.

15. Humble pie was a variant of 'umble pie', i.e a pie made from innards. In medieval times the pie was often served to lower-class people. Although 'umbles' and the modern word 'humble' are etymologically unrelated, each word has appeared both with and without the initial 'h' after the Middle Ages until the 19th Century.

16. Weasel words originated from the supposed habits of weasels sucking eggs. Weasel word is a word used to qualify a statement so as to make it potentially misleading.

"Weasel words are words that suck all of the life out of the words next to them just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell" - Century Magazine, quoted in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (New York: Facts on File Publications,1987).

17. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year was the text on the first Christmas card. The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 and featured an illustration by John Callcott Horsley.

18. Saved by the bell meaning saved by a last minute intervention. This is boxing slang that came into being in the latter half of the 19th century. A boxer who is in danger of losing a bout can be 'saved' from defeat by the bell that marks the end of a round. The earliest reference to this that I can find is in the Massachusetts newspaper The Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, February 1893:

"Martin Flaherty defeated Bobby Burns in 32 rounds by a complete knockout. Half a dozen times Flaherty was saved by the bell in the earlier rounds."

19. The sorts in out of sorts were printer's type blocks. It actually meaning irritable or somewhat unwell, with vague medical symptoms.

20. The phrase Salad Days was coined by William Shakespeare. It was taken from the play Anthony and Cleopatra written by Shakespeare:

"My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then!"

The phrase is now used to refer to one's days of youthful inexperience.

21. Boxing Day got its name from the giving of gifts in boxes at Christmas.

22. The first Jumbo was an elephant in Barnum's circus in 1882. The giant elephant's name has spawned the common word 'jumbo', meaning large in size.

23. The expression Double Dutch derives from the British difficulty in understanding Dutch. The English, historically, found Dutch (albeit a fellow Western Germanic language) particularly difficult to understand so anything that was completely incomprehensible would be double Dutch, i.e. twice as hard as Dutch. (Note that historically, 'Dutch' could refer to German dialects, as well.)

24. Booby prize meaning A prize or status, often unwelcome, awarded as a joke or disincentive to the loser of a contest or for poor performance.

• e.g At the end of the conference, they awarded him with a rubber chicken as a booby prize for complaining the loudest.

25. An inkling was a faint hearing of one's own name. It also meaning A slight suspicion or hint.

• e.g Featuring a prominent and unique opening chord, the song's success provided the first inkling that The Beatles were not the one-hit wonder some had suggested when they first came to America. —A Hard Day's Night (song)

Another meaning for inkling was inclination or desire.

source: www.phrases.org.uk, wikipedia