h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We had:

Ip Dip Dog S**t, F*****g B*****d Silly G*t, You Are Not It

In Ireland, the chosen person was 'On', not 'It'.

We used eeny meeny miny mo, or

ibble obble black bubble, ibble obble out, turn the dirty dishcloth inside out, and then some more lines i can't remember.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A271775 has quite a few Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Well fancy that!

They've even got my

"Eenie meenie macaraca
Rare raa dominaca
Knikerbocka lollypoppa
Om pom push"

But when a bit older and 'rock'ard', we tended to use "Ip dip dog sh*t"

Wow, we used eenie meenie macaraca!

And one potato, two potato...

A completely pointless post from David

Ours began :
"Ip, Dip, Dog Sh*t
You trud in it"...
but I can't remember the rest.
Interestingly, not until this very moment did I consciously realise the "trud" isn't even a word, but it was consistently pronounced that way in this situation.

Furthermore, we "put shoes in" - meaning we would all put one foot in a circle, our toes together, and the singer would crouch and point or more usually touch each shoe as he counted.
I imagine this is rare, others using hands or the singer merely pointing to the individuals as they stood in a (loose) circle.
Or did everyone "put shoes in".

We either put feet in or fists in, that way you can all either put one or two in (which is decided beforehand) and then the last one with a foot/fist in is it.

We used feet, and it was usually

"racing car racing number nine losing petrol all the time. How many gallons did he lose?"

The person whose foot was landed on for 'lose' would have to say a number, then that number counted 'round the circle- the person whose foot was landed on for that was 'tiggy'- the local equivalent of 'it'.

When playing tig you used to have to shout "no tiggy butcher" so the person you tigged couldn't tig you. I think "no tiggy butcher" was a corruption of "no tag your butcher".

Incidentally, if anyone with a good link or information regarding the origins of eeny, meeny, miny or mo could let me have it, I'd be grateful.
I know about catching the tiger by the toe (though it was no tiger in the 19th century), but I once read somewhere that eeny, meeny miny, mo grew from the first four characters of a North Atlantic/Scandinavian counting system dating back thousands of years. Anyone confirm or deny?

Mickey Mouse
Build a House
What Colour Bricks did he Use?

OR

How many bricks did he use

I remembered it!

ibble obble black bobble
ibble obble out
turn the dirty dish cloth inside out
not because it's dirty
not because it's clean
but all for the sake of the fairy queen
o-u-t spells out

or something... not sure about the last line.

One we learnt in Sweden (I apologise for the spelling - I've never seen it written down...)

Ooly dooly doff
kinka lana koff
koff-a lana
binka bana
ooly dooly doff

We mostly used

'Ip skip, sky blue, who's it, not you'
sometimes with the addition of 'o u t spells out so out you must go'
or 'not because you're dirty, not because you're clean, not because you're mother says you're the fairy queen'

But that is a rather lengthy process of elimination if there are lots of participants. Sometimes we used the rhyme but the first person thus selected was 'it'.

Those who were cunning could of course work out according to the number of people where it end from a given start & would thus pre-select 'it'.

How about this one, I think we had this in Canada:
Inky pinky ponky
Daddy bought a donkey
Donkey died
Daddy cried
Inky pinky ponky
My mother says to pick the very best one and you are it