'olly olly oxen free' in Congress

[Benjamin Barrett]

On Jun 13, 2013, at 8:09 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

> On Jun 13, 2013, at 9:50 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>
>> A Huff Post story at
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/indefinite-detention-americans_n_3437923.html?ref=topbar
>>
>> quotes a congressman as follows:
>>
>> "There was a phrase in that game called 'olly olly oxen free' -- meant you
>> could come out, you were safe, you no longer had to hide," Cotton argued.
>>
>> I've never heard "hide 'n' seek" called that, but the phrase is now in the
>> Congressional Record.
>>
> Maybe he was blending two observations--
>
> (1) There was a phrase in a game, which went "olly olly oxen free" and that meant you could come out [etc.]
> (2) The game in question was hide 'n' seek.
>
> Close enough for government work.

It's a parsing issue. Here's the quote from the article:

-----
Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), compared ending indefinite detention to giving someone a free pass in a game of hide-and-seek.

"There was a phrase in that game called 'olly olly oxen free' -- meant you could come out, you were safe, you no longer had to hide," Cotton argued.
-----

-> a phrase called olly olly oxen free

This is a little awkward, but is probably common enough in speech.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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