::whoosh::
:o
No need to apologize. Your rebuttal was exceedingly polite (esp. since this is the Pit), and you did not once reach for my toes. 
Ditto for Bibliocat. 
Being from the South, I always heard the ‘n’-word version growing up. Yep, I hate giving the south a black eye (oops) like that, but it’s true. We were a lot more crass back then (70’s) but give us a chance. Some of us aren’t that bad.
Besides, I used “Bubble gum in a Dish” or “One Potato-Two Potato” more often. Chances are I was offending the Irish without knowing it though.
I have Irish ancestry. Can I sue if I’m ever the victim of a round of “one potato, two potato”?
Okay, I didn’t see Max’s post before I posted. I read slow.
Or it coul’ jus’ be that I’m drunk, b’gorrah.
Some time ago, I found a reprint of Little Black Sambo with the original illustrations. It was quite a shock to realize it was about India, not about Africa at all. So tigers were entirely appropriate to the story. Read a bit about the author, Helen Bannerman.
What’s “Bubble gum in a dish”?
Also being from the South (New Orleans), I almost always hear “Catch a fella by the toe”. I did run across the racist version from time to time, but by no means was it the default version.
Let’s not paint the entire South with such a big brush.
Which version?
“One potato, Two potato, Three Potato, Four.
God I hate those drunken, fighting micks and their Papist whores?”
or
“Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, in a dish
How many Micks drink like a fish?”
Bubble gum in a Dish? 
It’s another rhyme kids use to pick one of something, or someone to be it for a game. This is the way I learned it:
Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish.
How many pieces do you wish?
then the person would pick a number, and you would count out that many. 1-2-3-4-5 and you are it.
We also did Engine, engine number nine, which might be construed as insensitive to train wreck victims:
Engine, engine number nine
Going down Chicago line
If the train goes off the track,
Do you want your money back?
Yes, No, Maybe So?
I learned both the tiger and the nigger versions as a kid.
Things I also learned as a kid
Nigger Knocking ringing someone’s doorbell and running away. (sort of a form of prank phone calls)
Nigger rig AKA Jury rig to ‘fix’ something (usually a car) in a non-standard fashion. Like useing bailing wire and duct tape to affix your alternator to the engin.
(what in the hell is with this ‘N-word’ crap? People write ball-licking, goat feltching and a host of other foul terms and yet somehow nigger is so offensive it can not be spoken or written. Don’t you think that attitude contributes to the type of behavior the OP is bitching about?)
For the record the “n-word” verson of the rhyme is featured in the movie Pulp Fiction when Zed is picking whether Ving Rhames or Bruse Willis will go first.
Being from the midwest circa 1959, we also learned the “n” version of the rhyme. I was an adult before I heard the “t” version. 
No. I don’t. The long history of the hatred, violence, and prejudice that is tied up in the N-word makes it horribly offensive. Unless you know people are not going to be offended by the word, I would suggest not using it. Just my 2 cents though.
I was thinking…
“One potato, two potato, three potato four
No potatoes for the micks, shove 'em out the door!”
Just FTR those are things that I learned in my childhood. I don’t use the term nigger today except when discussing the term nigger.
Hey, good thing the stewardess didn’t say:
“Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy, asses, asses, must all be sat down!!”
Because there might have been some bubonic plague sufferers on board.
I use the term ‘Jimmy-rig’ occasionally. Does that mean I’m discriminating against people named Jimmy?
I also sometimes say ‘that’s like the pot calling the kettle a cooking utensil’. I consider it ‘updating’ the phrase, since I hear people use the term ‘black’ and don’t even realize what that means.
Of course, I guess even the updated phrase might be considered offensive to some. I don’t want to be sued - perhaps I should stop.
Let’s not go overboard with political correctness.
“The pot calling the kettle black” refers to cast-iron cooking implements, both of which were black in color. Hence, the pot is criticizing the kettle for sharing the same trait (in this case, color) the pot does. There’s no racial overtones to it at all.
I always thought it was because they’d both been blackened by so many hours over the fire.