Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

[Wilson Gray]

On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:23 PM, sagehen wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Eeny Meeny Miny Moe
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>
>  The substitution of "tiger" for "nigger" in eeny-meeny came long
> after my
> childhood.  While we were forbidden to use "nigger" in general, that
> is, in
> expressions such as "nigger toes" for Brazil nuts or "niggerheads" for
> coneflowers, or "nigger in the woodpile" for the obscure bad factor, I
> don't remember that eeny-meeny was out-of-bounds.  I think this was
> because
> our parents made a distinction between culturally-embedded usage and
> voluntary use.  They would look askance at bowdlerization, but would
> avoid
> the incivility of gratuitous insult. Blackface was instrinsically bad,
> so_
> Amos & Andy_  was out, nevermind that it was a staple in black
> households
> with radios. We employed a black daily maid, but, oddly, this was a
> mark of
> liberal enlightenment in that place & time: all the other households
> on the
> street had white maids only.
> Sorry, I seem to be wandering off the track here.
> A. Murie
>

Oh, what the hey? Why can't we just assume that dialectology is but a
form of sociolinguistics and go with that?

I was completely unaware of the term "nigger toe" till I was in the
Army in 1961.  A white, fellow G.I., also from Texas, explained it to
me. Of course, once I'd heard the explanation, the relevance of the
usage was immediately obvious. I have no idea what a "coneflower" is,
so you've lost me on that one. 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.

-Wilson Gray