“Nigger”, never heard any alternatives - although probably go along with the views that it was not used as too easy to fix who was “it”!
Male, white, prod. 39, SE England.
20, Missouri/Florida/Mississippi (MS only recently though)
I NEVER heard anything but tiger until I was 18 or 19 and read a thread similar to this on the Snopes MB.
Curious (and tipsy)…Why would you catch a tiger (or other) by the toe?
Growing up in western Minnesota, as a child I remember:
catch an injun by the toe.
Never heard the n… version until one Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house, from cousins in the the Twin Cities. But then, we hardly had any blacks around my home town in western Minnesota, but quite a few indians.
Seems to be generally whatever group is disrespected in the neighborhood. I had a friend in college tell me that growing up they said:
catch a farmer by the toe. He was from cattle ranching country in western Dakotas, where ranchers & farmers had been feuding for a hundred years or so.
I always used Tigger. I’m not sure if it was from hearing other people say that, or if I misheard something else.
27 Scarborough Ontario
28, Northern Ireland. Always heard it as ‘nigger’.
Had no idea as a child of the conotations or meaning of the word. Most kids probably still don’t.
I don’t know, but at least it made more sense than the one I grew up with.
“catch a nickel by the toe”
All my friends and I used it (although “tiger” was an occasional substitute), never really questioned the meaning. It wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I heard from a neighbor who was in her 70’s what the rhyme used to be (and she would have given me hell if she’d heard me use it back when I was little).
32, Boston suburbs
43, ‘tiger,’ San Diego
I never heard the ‘N’ version until long after I was grown – I think I was already married with kids before I heard it.
I just spoke with my dad, who is 67 and was raised in Northern California and he used the ‘N’ version, as did my mom, 64 and also rasied in San Diego. My mom claims she didn’t even know what a ‘nigger’ was – there were black people around San Diego at the time, of course, but she didn’t call them ‘nigger,’ never heard them called ‘nigger’ and never made that connection. She said she figured a nigger was just something you caught by the toe during ‘eenie, meenie, minie, moe…’ – and, after you caught them, apparently you ate their toes – she also grew up with Brazil nuts called ‘nigger toes.’ Anyway, by the time she had kids she knew what the word meant and taught us to use ‘tiger’ and ‘brazil nut’ instead. And, so schooled herself against the use of the original versions that all three of us kids (my brother is 42 and my sister, 41) grew up completely unaware of the uglier versions.
And, how the hell do you catch a pickle by the toe? Pickles don’t have toes!
46,Central New York,“n” word.
I’m curious…those of you who said tiger,nickel or pickle–how did you say the third line? We said “If he hollers,let him go” - which doesn’t seem to fit with your versions.
I always heard and used “tiger”. I never heard of the racist version until I was in my late 30s…
It was always “nigger” when I was growing up in NW London in the 50s (I am 50). In all innocence - we didnt know any better.
37 yo, rural Australia, nigger
Oddly enough its not a word in common usage in Australian English and that ditty is the only context I heard it in.
Fit fine with ‘tiger’. One may not usually consider a tiger’s voice a ‘holler’, but there was no question that, were a tiger to holler at us, we would certainly let him go.
It was the “N” word.
33 F
Houston
Our version was more of a conglomerate, probably stuck together to make it last longer:
eeney, meeney, miney, moe
catch a “n” by the toe
if he hollers make him pay
50 dollars every day.
My mother told me to pick the very best one
but I was naughty and chose this one!
Ditto. I’m 47 and from suburban Chicago.
I thought they were Brazil nuts…not cashews.
And for the record, if a pickle were to holler at me, I would let it go, too.
Tiger or Injun.
Spent most of my childhood in Georgia.
I’m 40 now.
I’m trying to remember the whole rhyme–
Eenie meenie minie mo
Catch an injun by the toe
If he hollers, let him go.
My mother told me to pick the very best one and you are NOT it
Repeated ad infinitum until there was just one person left.
28, grew up in Michigan, always heard it as “tiger” until this message board covered that airlines thing.
don’t feel bad, minor. i grew up in Cleveland, OH (approaching 49 at light speed), and i learned “piggy” as the standard.
yes, the “n” version eventually roamed into my orbit sometime in grade school, but that was soon understood to be a frowned-upon alternate. (although my Grandma, rest her soul, was unenlightened enough to use the alternate name for Brazil nuts once or twice.) overt racism in language was being pushed out in my formative years. unfortunately, the elderly had a harder time catching on (or up).