'olly olly oxen free' in Congress

[Herb Stahlke]

I couldn't make the video work on my laptop that evening, but I checked on
another, and you're right.  Huff Post reported it in a confused manner.


On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 'olly olly oxen free' in Congress
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the video on the page you cited, he specifically calls it
> "hide-n-seek." I can't imagine parsing this to mean that the game was
> called olly ollen oxen free.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> On Jun 14, 2013, at 6:08 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I read that quote, and I didn't think it was clear that the congressman
> > knew the name of the game.  The writer did.  What caught my attention was
> > "a phrase in the game called..."  Taking "called" to modify "phrase"
> > requires a stretch of a parse.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 11:30 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Jun 13, 2013, at 8:09 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Jun 13, 2013, at 9:50 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> A Huff Post story at
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/indefinite-detention-americans_n_3437923.html?ref=topbar
> >>>>
> >>>> quotes a congressman as follows:
> >>>>
> >>>> "There was a phrase in that game called 'olly olly oxen free' -- meant
> >> you
> >>>> could come out, you were safe, you no longer had to hide," Cotton
> >> argued.
> >>>>
> >>>> I've never heard "hide 'n' seek" called that, but the phrase is now in
> >> the
> >>>> Congressional Record.
> >>>>
> >>> Maybe he was blending two observations--
> >>>
> >>> (1) There was a phrase in a game, which went "olly olly oxen free" and
> >> that meant you could come out [etc.]
> >>> (2) The game in question was hide 'n' seek.
> >>>
> >>> Close enough for government work.
> >>
> >> It's a parsing issue. Here's the quote from the article:
> >>
> >> -----
> >> Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), compared ending indefinite detention to giving
> >> someone a free pass in a game of hide-and-seek.
> >>
> >> "There was a phrase in that game called 'olly olly oxen free' -- meant
> you
> >> could come out, you were safe, you no longer had to hide," Cotton
> argued.
> >> -----
> >>
> >> -> a phrase called olly olly oxen free
> >>
> >> This is a little awkward, but is probably common enough in speech.
>
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