Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

[Peter A. McGraw]

I'm catching up with my e-mail, so perhaps I've missed something.  So far,
I haven't seen a mention of "turkey" as the eeny-meeny euphemism.  That's
the version I grew up with in So. California.  Or did I hear it from my
grandmother from Oklahoma?  Both, as I recall.

Peter Mc.


--On Monday, January 31, 2005 3:13 AM -0500 SeXn Fitzpatrick
<grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET> wrote:

> Outside Washington, D.C., in the early 1950s, I learned of the "Catch a
> nigger by his toe" version when a teen-aged playground monitor cautioned
> us to say "tiger" instead.  Well, who doesn't ?, I thought.
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> <<However, I do know "niggerhead," but primarily as a literary term for
> an underwater obstruction that can rip out the bottom of a commercial
> fishing boat.>>
>
> Besides the underwater obstacle, I have heard "niggerhead" applied to a
> kind of broadleaf lawn weed.  It sends up a thin stalk (thinner than a
> dandelion stem) topped by a tight seed cluster that has a nubbly texture
> somewhat like the standard pre-Afro Negro hair style. (More often seen on
> women nowadays.)  My father referred to them as "whiskers".  To a lad
> just taking up the responsibility of lawnmowing, the weeds were more
> annoying than dandelions.  The stalks bent out of the way of the
> reel-type push mower and had to be clipped or cut with a grass whip.
>
> Seán Fitzpatrick
> Beer is good food
> http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************