nyaa nyaa/ naa naa (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 14, 2012, at 11:43 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> On Feb 14, 2012, at 11:19 AM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>
>> Does the distribution of "Olly Olly Oxen--Free" vs. "Allee allee outs
>> in free," the formula we used in SE Michigan sixty years ago,
>
> Hey, that actually makes sense, the outs being allowed safe passage to come in.  I always wondered about the oxen.  As mentioned, our version was just "All-y all-y in free", which also made sense to us.  (The "in" was stressed for us, but presumably not for the "oxen" and "outs in" folks, so we employed a nice iambic trimeter.)
>
> LH

What I meant, or should have meant, was of course a nice *trochaic* trimeter.  An *iambic* trimeter would be e.g. "To BE or NOT to BE", which is quite different metrically (as well as in other respects) from "ALL-y ALL-y IN free".  What can I say?  Iamb what iamb.

LH

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