# Tig or Tag
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 30, 2004, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855 "2004-06-30T09:42:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/1 "2004-06-30T09:42:49Z")
Recently my girlfriend was talking about games she played as a child and mentioned the game _‘tag’_. Right away she apologised, saying that she had meant to say _‘tig’_.
I said that she was correct the first time when she said ‘tag’.
Both are probably interchangable but I had never heard of ‘tig’ before she mentioned it and was wondering if it was a local expression of hers (Northern England) or if I’m the outcast with my ‘tag’ (Ireland).
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### Author:  [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/2 "2004-06-30T09:44:48Z")
I wouldn’t normally post computer-type questions in GQ but goggle failed me…
What I need is a bandwidth monitor for windows that displays the network traffic not by application but by port number. I’ve downloaded several likely programs but no luck so far.
Has anyone ever heard of such an app?
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### Author:  [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/3 "2004-06-30T09:45:56Z")
Oh my God !
Hard to believe I hit ‘Reply to Thread’ rather than ‘New Thread’ 😉
Must get it fixed…
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/4 "2004-06-30T10:04:05Z")
I remember playing ‘tig’ at an all-English infants school in cyprus, then, when we returned to the UK, playing ‘tag’ at primary school and that nobody seemed to have heard of ‘tig’. I suspect it is a regional thing and that the convention in the school in Cyprus had simply been imported from a different part of the UK.
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### Author:  [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/5 "2004-06-30T10:20:09Z")
We played ‘catches’.
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### Author:  [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/6 "2004-06-30T10:55:59Z")
For me, in the 60’s and 70’s in southern england, it was called ‘It’.
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### Author:  [@silverfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silverfish)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/7 "2004-06-30T12:54:19Z")
I’m from Chesterfield, Derbyshire in the east midlands. I think it was either tig or tiggy in my neck of the woods. That would have been in the 90s and possibly a bit of the late 80s.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/8 "2004-06-30T13:03:39Z")
I’m in the States, and until I read this thread I had never heard of any name but “tag.” It always made sense, as the idea was to tag people.
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### Author:  [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/9 "2004-06-30T13:08:59Z")
> [@Gary T](#):
>
> I’m in the States, and until I read this thread I had never heard of any name but “tag.” It always made sense, as the idea was to tag people.
Indeed and was the point I made to my g/f but she’s sticking with _tig_
[Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) says Tig? - See ‘Tag’ 🙂
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/10 "2004-06-30T19:40:37Z")
I’m from North West England. Everyone I know refers to it as tig, I’ve neevr heard anyone refer to it as tag.
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### Author:  [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/11 "2004-06-30T21:56:38Z")
I’m from the midwest US and I’ve never heard of anything but Tag.
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### Author:  [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/12 "2004-06-30T23:47:47Z")
New Zealand here. We always called it tiggy.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/13 "2004-07-01T00:07:29Z")
Another New Zealander here, _we_ always called it “tag” or “it” as in, you’re “it”.
I must be from a more cultured part of the country :).
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/14 "2004-07-01T00:10:57Z")
The earliest use of _tag_ to mean a child’s game is cited in the OED from 1738(in England). _Tig_ is cited as the game from only 1816. But _tig_ to mean a “light touch or pat” is cited from 1721.
Why _tag_ evolved into the only term pretty much used in the US is mysterious.
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### Author:  [@robinc308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinc308)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/15 "2004-07-01T00:18:16Z")
Another one for tiggy here. I grew up in Melbourne, Australia.
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### Author:  [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/16 "2004-07-01T03:34:47Z")
> [@1920s Style "Death Ray"](#):
>
> Another New Zealander here, _we_ always called it “tag” or “it” as in, you’re “it”.
>
> I must be from a more cultured part of the country :).
Probably one of those funny places down South 😃
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/17 "2004-07-01T10:34:31Z")
> [@Calm Kiwi](#):
>
> Probably one of those funny places down South 😃
You don’t deny that it is more cultured down there then? :dubious:
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### Author:  [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/18 "2004-07-01T11:25:12Z")
Oh I deny it. I just know where the deluded ones are from 😃
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### Author:  [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/19 "2004-07-01T12:57:08Z")
So far it’s Northern Brits and Northern Kiwi’s who use ‘tig’ Vs the Rest of the World who say ‘tag’.
Is that right?
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tig-or-tag/252855/20 "2004-07-01T15:42:13Z")
Tag in California.
Haj
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