"Ching-chong"

[Tom Zurinskas]

Interesting how the "i" in "chin" ~chin changes in "ching" ~cheeng to ~ee (as in "see")
Also how the "o" in "chon" ~chaan changes in "chong" ~chaung to ~au (as in "launch")
Must have something to do with saying the "g".


Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, then Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 9.
The FREE English-based phonetic converters, URL and text , are at truespel.com












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> Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:12:07 -0400
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Ching-chong"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: "Ching-chong"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> >> Poster: Laurence Horn
> >> 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 wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>>> -----------------------
> >>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>>> Poster: Wilson Gray
> >>>> 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
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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