In the US, the common practice is to use “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi…” until the desired number of seconds is reached. What is protocol for other English speaking countries?
I think the British have lots, but one in common with the US is one one thousand two one thousand…
I’ve been told that “piccadilly” is a common variant.
In Australia I know of ‘One Mississipi …’ from TV but haven’t heard it actually used. We learned ‘One one thousand …’ at school, but most commonly I’ve heard ‘One aaaaaaaand Two aaaaaaaand …’ which is simultaneously less accurate and more annoying.
In Canada I’ve heard “one steamboat, two steamboat” etc, but I don’t know if that’s a Canadian thing or more widespread. We usually just use Mississippi though.
I learned “steamboat” as a child but I use Mississippi now. There’s no good reason for it.
One cat-and-dog, Two cat-and-dog
I don’t know where I was when I learned that.
Same. That’s what we did in primary school (in … Melbourne! I don’t remember what they did when I was in Scotland)
I (in the UK) don’t remember anything specifically for this purpose. There’s a vague memory of a rhyme for a game of some sort, something like
One potato, two potato, three potato, four;
Five potato, six potato, one potato more
My mother tells the story of when she was in high school in Taipei, and as part of an object lesson/experiment, she and her classmates were instructed to sit down and close their eyes in silence and only stand up when they sensed that exactly 1 minute had gone by, to see whose internal clock was the most accurate. She had previously been told before that literally saying the word “second” (miaozhong) in her head “yi miaozhong, lian miaozhong, san miaozhong” (“one second, two seconds, three seconds…”) was the most accurate way to do such a thing. So that’s what she did, counting it in her head, and she was one of the most accurate students to stand up at the 1-minute mark.
I haven’t heard seconds counted any other way in Mandarin, whether playing hide-and-seek or in any other context - aside from directly saying one, two, three. That being said, unfortunately, being only a two-syllable word, it’s easy for someone to cheat by rattling off “miaozhongs” far faster than an actual second. You could squeeze in three miaozhongs if adept enough.
One potato… etc is just a simple counting rhymr for children
When I was a boy in the 1950s, we used Mississippi.
I just count, and I’m reasonably accurate. But here in the UK One Elephant, Two Elephants… is often used. Here’s an example from the movie Gregory’s Girl - @ ~ 1.34.
j
The adult version is one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor…
I’ve always used “one one thousand” version - never even heard of the “Mississippi” version before, and I’m in the US.
Einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig (21, 22) in German.
That’s surprising. Off the top of my head I can think of episodes of “Friends” and “Big Bang Theory” where using Mississippi was a prominent plot point.
Concur with this, although I also know the potato version.
Elephants? Never heard that, only “thousand.”
In Norway it’s tusen og en, tusen og to, tusen og tre. (Thousand and one, thousand and two …)
Also used in massive “don’t tailgate!”-campaigns in the slogan:
Hold avstand! 1001-1002-1003
(And @PatrickLondon)
The one potato thing I only ever knew as a playground “fist-stacking” game. “Fist-stacking” was the only way I could think of to describe it, but it turns out I’m not the first to use the phrase - section 2 of this, for example, is about fist-stacking games. Anyways:
One Potato - first kid, first fist
Two potato - second kid, first fist
Three potato - third kid, first fist
Four - fourth kid, first fist
Five potato - first kid, second fist
Six potato - second kid, second fist
Seven potato - third kid, second fist
More - fourth kid, second fist; AND everyone pulls fists out of the stack and piles them on top to much hilarity.
Counting seconds? Nah, not where I come from.
j