I learned this verse at my father’s knee, but I have never understood what the heck it was supposed to mean.
Who wrote it? Who/what is Puddentain? Is that the right spelling? Is Puddentain male or female? Is the number a house number, a telephone number, or some weird numerology thing? And why is the number not a number?
Our long-lost friend Jois started a Puddentane thread more than a year ago, but my questions were not answered there.
I’ve heard the Puddentain/Ask me again I’ll tell you the same version. I 've also heard it “Puddentame” - to better rhyme with “name” and “same,” I suppose.
AFAIK, the “Puddentain” rhyme is just kid responses to nosy questions (e.g.What’s your name, kid? I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?). The replies are meant to be nonsense and to foil the interrogator. Puddentain isn’t a specific person, it’s more of an innocent version of a made-up name along the lines of “I.P. Freely” or “Dick Hertz”. (I tried looking up variations of “Puddentain” without much luck, but I did find that “tain” means a tinfoil plate. So maybe it just means “Pudding plate”?)
The number could mean house number or phone number - I don’t know how long this rhyme has been round. “Cucumber!”
is a good cheeky retort, plus it rhymes with “number” and is funnier than “lumber” or “slumber.”
I don’t know how much luck you’ll have tracking down the author. I think this is an oral-tradition style of thing, like counting-out rhymes that we all learned as kids, but never saw written down anywhere.
Engine, engine number nine
Going down Chicago Line
If the train should jump the track
Do you want your money back?
Y-E-S spells “Yes”
And you are not
IT!
Iona and Peter Opie delved into the etiology of this in their excellent The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. “Puddentain”, an ancient name with various spellings, is, IIRC, a medieval devil’s moniker.
Thank you. My friendly neighborhood library has that book, so I’ll check it out the next time I’m up there.
Interesing. The version I always heard (and used, of course) was:
What’s your name?
Puddentain. Ask me again, and I’ll tell you the same.
There was an old film noir (Dead End maybe?) where the cops picked-up a young hoodlum and were grilling him. Three cops were firing off questions:
“What’s your name?”… “Where do you live?”…“What’s your number?”… and the kid was responding: “Puddentane”…“Down the Lane”…“Cucumber”… and the head cop came back with: “Aw, smart-alek, huh?” Film must of been from the 1930s and was the earliest version I remember seeing of that exchange.
A quick look at Google Books pushes the name back to the 19th century.
Well this thread finally explains this Far Side cartoon I never understood…
I thought it was Puddin’ Tame (puddin’ = pudding), perhaps similar to Mark Twain’s character Pudd’nhead Wilson.
It seems Gary Larson agrees with my spelling.
I remember seeing it in the 1932 Our Gang (Little Rascals) short film Readin’ and Writin’.
Teacher: What’s your name?
Student #1: John Brown. Ask me again and I’ll knock you down.
Teacher( to next student): What’s your name?
Student #2: Puddin’ Tame. Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.
One of the students was purposefully trying to get expelled from school, and had convinced a few other children to help him make the teacher angry.
I didn’t understand that one, either, until I talked to my future wife about it. She was amazed that I never heard of “Pudding Tame – ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”
In fact, until I read this thread, I didn’t realize that it went beyond that. I never heard the “Down the Lane” and “Cucumber” rejoinders before.
Just for completeness’s sake (and, yes, it’s stoopid), here’s the version we had in grammar school:
What’s your name? Choo-choo train.
What’s your number? Koo-cucumber.
Didn’t make sense then, doesn’t make sense now.