Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down
Hickory dickory dock
Some people think Hickory dickory dock was a “counting out game,” and you may think you don’t know what that is, but you do. We used
eeny, meanie, miney, moe
catch a tiger* by the toe
if he hollers make him pay
fifty dollars every day
my mother told me
to pick the
very best one
and you
are not**
it
**I remember from long ago, someone saying this word used to be the “n” word, but thankfully it was all tigers around me all the time.
**tricky, so tricky
This rhyme helps you choose someone at random from a group. Of course, once you know the pattern, you can use this to your advantage, but it takes kids a while to figure this out.
Another “counting out” game is rock, paper, scissors. That one lives powerfully, I think, with kids and adults today. It just works. (Until someone ends on a fist with the thumb stuck up– dynamite.)
Here’s another one I never used, but I like:
ink-a-dink
bottle of ink
the cork fell out
and you stink
not because you’re dirty
not because you’re clean (oh really)
just because you kissed a girl
behind a magazine*
my mother says to pick the
very best one… (etc.)
*sexual shame
“Hickory dickory dock,” not sure how it was used as a counting game, a selection game. Perhaps the last “dock” meant you were “out,” or “in.” “Hickory” is first found in 1744, in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book. In 1765, it was “Dickery, dickery dock,” prompting me to ask, how did the meanings of “dick” develop? Library of Congress says OED says (I don’t have the OED, and it’s to my eternal shame): when Godfrey Derrick executed men in the 1600s, “since a criminal quickly asphyxiated by hanging can spontaneously get an errection and even ejaculate, Derrick’s name was applied to the erect penis spectators keenly watched for,” and Derrick became “dick.”
I’m sorry we got here.
Except that when I think people now are uncaring, misguided monsters, I have to remember that people in 1600s England were attending executions as entertainment and looking at the reaction of the private parts of the man just killed in front of them.
I have one clock, a cuckoo clock, and I love it because I only wind it when I
want to, and I have removed the hands, so its purpose is strictly limited: it ticks with placid regularity, and spontaneously (to the observer) it cuckoos from one to twelve times.
The German in me (I guess) gives me a love of clocks working. I just hate what they are made to do. I love seeing little wooden people emerge, pretend to chop a log, or do a dance. The opening of “Back to the Future” features many great clocks, and “Pinnochio” (the real one) shows us Gepetto’s incredible clock stash.
I found someone who created gifs from all of Gepetto’s clocks, as well as his WATCH!
1. ducks with head up and butt up, flipping as if he’s diving again and again
2. bee bursting out of the center of a flower
3. baby birds popping screaming out of eggs
4. turkey retreating from having his head chopped off every time man tries to chop it
5. man shooting pop gun at retracting bird (awful similar to #4)
6. dummy popping out to clock himself in the head with a cartoon mallet
7. fat woman spanking little boy’s naked butt after he got his fist stuck in a jam jar
8. (Gepetto’s pocket watch) two red-nosed men clanking their beers together (“it’s happy hour somewhere”)
MAGNIFICENT
I grew up in a family split not only by Protestantism and Catholicism (can you imagine?) but also split by our views of time. My mom’s side (Catholic) was generally looser about time. They liked chatting, and a chat might delay you. My dad’s side (Protestant) generally viewed being on time as the main proof that you gave a damn about other people. I’m more you-get-there-when-you-get-there, especially if I have a book.
I love things happening on their own, the ultimate art, the God thing, set it in motion, and then it goes on its own. You get to just enjoy, be there with it.
I am touched by the UK’s National Literacy Trust posting the words to nursery rhymes, and including suggestions for how to “do” them with a child.
In my family, the act-it-out rhyme (in addition to the classic pat-a-cake) was called This Little Monster:
This little monster (two fingers walk up child’s foot)
Climbs the stairs (up leg)
Every night to (tension builds)
SAY HIS PRAYERS! (TICKLE)
I have googled this now, and I see no evidence that anyone else on the planet ever used this rhyme. Maybe my parents made this up? Monsters were featured a lot in my growing up, due to a foundation of “Sesame Street” including the classic The Monster at the End of this Book (which is by the way maybe all you need to know in life, there are monsters, they will come, you’ll deal, life will go on until it doesn’t, wow, yes).
Is life like, do-dee-do, and then suddenly TAXES
Yes. The rhythm of music and language can calm us through this.
It can do a lot.
You’ll graduate from hearing nursery rhymes to doing hand-claps like “Miss Susie” and jump rope chants like “Cinderella/dressed in pink.” And then to song lyrics, with your friends and the songs that make your adolescence, and your awe at them.
Climb the stairs every night to say your prayers.
Going On 