"Ching-chong"

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:02 PM -0400 3/31/11, Michael Newman wrote:
>Did you have
>Eeny meeny miny mo,
>Catch a nigger by the toe?
>
>I grew up with "catch a tiger"  (in the early 60s) but my mom had
>the racist version back in the bad old days before WWII.

I only had the tiger version (in the 50's).  I was amazed when I
heard (about) the "nigger" version, which wouldn't have been allowed
in our apartment but also wasn't anything I heard on the street.

>
>I think the loss of Ching Chong or Ching Chow is a small price to
>pay for the lessening of verbal humiliation.

Agreed. The humiliation part of it comes out in the discussion at
that wiki site where the quatrain comes from,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_chong

LH
>
>
>On Mar 31, 2011, at 2:35 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: "Ching-chong"
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 1:52 PM -0400 3/31/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>  Wasn't his name "Ching Chow"?
>>>
>>>  His observations were skeptical and ironic.
>>>
>>
>>  not to be confused with the beer of (almost) the same name.  I've
>>  only ever heard "Ching Chong" in that [/___ Chinaman] context Wilson
>>  mentions below, not as a specific cartoon philosopher. In fact, while
>>  wikipedia tries to remind me of a quatrain that goes (or rather went)
>>
>>  Ching Chong, Chinaman,
>>  Sitting on a wall.
>>  Along came a white man,
>>  And chopped his tail off.
>>
>>  I only remember the first two lines.  I guess we were just
>>  half-racist, or half-assed racists, in those days.
>>  Besides which, this is the sort of rhyme one expect to rhyme.
>>
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>>  On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>  -----------------------
>>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>>  Subject:      "Ching-chong"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>  This string was spoken on last night's Daily Show. Back in the day,
>>>>  _Ching-Chong_ was the name of a cartoon "Chinese philosopher." An
>>>>  article about Sweden in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that
>>>>  _Kipp-Koepp Kinaman(sp?)_ was the Swedish equivalent of "Ching-Chong
>>>>  Chinaman."
>>>>
>>>>  I really miss the olden, pre-politically-correct days! These days,
>>>>  interesting little factoids, such as the above WRT Swedish, would be
>>>>  suppressed in the name of inexistant abstraction: "social equality."
>>>>
>>>>  --
>>>>  -Wilson
>>>>  -----
>>>>  All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>>>>  to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>>  -Mark Twain
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  --
>>>  "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>>
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>
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