nyah nyah na-nyah nyah in other languages
Charles Strauss
taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
of the world) is this particular chant?
/C.M. Strauss
PS: I don't recall seeing an answer to this in the Opies' book on nursery
rhymes.
Perchprism
Charles wrote:
>From: cha...@cs.uri.edu (Charles Strauss)
>Date: 9/18/98 8:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6ttl2p$ikt$1...@ron.uri.edu>
>
>Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
>taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the
>playgrounds
>of the world) is this particular chant?
Additional info:
It can be rendered in 3/8 thus: DDDBBEDDDBBB (legato, presto) (key of G Major
shown)
Perchprism
". . . further, father? That can't be right." - Groucho
Eric The Read
> Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah
> nyah" to taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across
> the playgrounds of the world) is this particular chant?
On the playground in .nl, I recall hearing and saying, "lekker puh" (or
perhaps "lekker purh"). I have no idea what this means, and didn't back
then, when I said it. :) Anyhow, it's probably also egregiously
misspelled.
We also used "nuh-nuh", which is similar to the English "nyah".
-=Eric
H.W.M.
Charles Strauss wrote:
> Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
> taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
> of the world) is this particular chant?
I'd need a midi file to assess it is the same, but I hear it all the time here in
Finland ( live next door to a kindergarten).Though the kids use rather a 'lällä
läl-lä lää-lä' istead of a 'nännän-nännän-nää-nä' as your stuff would be.
There is a distinctive tone to it. This tone is also 'sung' with different words
with a mumbo-jumbo and then some derogatory remark, and there are various. It
seems the tone is more teasing than the actual words.
--
Henry Wilhelm >>> henry.w @ gnwmail.com <<<
*********************************************
* I could be bounded in a nut-shell, *
* and count myself a king of infinite space,*
* were it not that I have bad dreams *
*********************************************
K1912
Charles Strauss wrote:
>Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
>taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the
>playgrounds
>of the world) is this particular chant?
>/C.M. Strauss
>PS: I don't recall seeing an answer to this in the Opies' book on nursery
>rhymes.
>
>
Now if any "particular chant" can be said to be widespread, surely it's this
chant. And a lot of adults continue to use it, too--humorously, of course.
gk
K1912
jensens
Charles Strauss skrev i meddelelsen <6ttl2p$ikt$1...@ron.uri.edu>...
>Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah"
to
>taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the
playgrounds
>of the world) is this particular chant?
The kids in Denmark sing it with the text:
Navra for Laura
NNs bukser flagrer -
meaning something like
nyah-nyah for dah-dah (nonsense-words, the latter "dah-dah" in reality a
girl's name, Laura, which in Danish is pronounced "lou-rah" .... "lou" like
in "loud". "Navra" rhymes with "Laura")
NN's trousers are dangling.
And you replace the NN with the name of the poor victim...
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>
>
>Charles Strauss wrote:
>
>> Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
>> taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
>> of the world) is this particular chant?
>
>Finland ( live next door to a kindergarten).Though the kids use rather a 'lällä
>läl-lä lää-lä' istead of a 'nännän-nännän-nää-nä' as your stuff would be.
>There is a distinctive tone to it.
I have this recollection, even more vague than my recollections usually are,
that there is some sort of universality (or at least wide-spreaded-ness(?)) to
the tune.
Has any composer ever used it as a theme?
Gary Williams
Ashley Lambert-Maberly
>that there is some sort of universality (or at least wide-spreaded-ness(?)) to
>the tune.
>Has any composer ever used it as a theme?
>Gary Williams
It's all over "Kid's Game" in Blood Brothers by Willy Russell, appropriately
enough, I suppose.
Ashley Lambert-Maberly
(proud reader of rec-arts.tv.soaps.abc)
Golden Frango 1998; Corporate Frango 1998 & 1997; Jeweled Frango 1995
********************************************************************
NEW TO THIS NEWSGROUP? TRY OUR WEBSITE: www.terindell.net/ratsa
HIT THE BABE PAGE--PLAY THE BROOKE GAME: www.budgetandplanning.ubc.ca/babe/brooke.htm
RELIVE THE FRANGO AWARDS: www.budgetandplanning.ubc.ca/babe/frango98.htm
FAC Kendall; Keeper of the FAC List; Frango Awards Moderator
Martin A. Mazur
>
>Has any composer ever used it as a theme?
>
>Gary Williams
Among others, the composer of an old jingle for Cracker Jack, used it as part
of the jingle. The words were:
Candy-coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize.
That's what you get in Cracker Jack.
The words "Candy-coated popcorn" were sung to the "tune" of the
"nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah nyah" taunt.
I've also heard many jazz (and rock) soloists, both instrumental and vocal
(scat singers) use playfully mingle this theme into their improvisations.
--
Martin A. Mazur | 3rd Century thoughts on MTV:
| "There is no public entertainment which
Representing only himself. | does not inflict spiritual damage"
| - Tertullian
|
Philip Morgan
Business Services Accounting) wrote:
>I have this recollection, even more vague than my recollections usually are,
>that there is some sort of universality (or at least wide-spreaded-ness(?)) to
>the tune.
To me it's the same 'tune' as 'Bye Bye Baby Bunting, Father's gone
a-hunting' etc. The remainder is, fo course, far to non-pc and
role-stereotypic to repeat in these enlightened days.
Lee Rudolph
>I have this recollection, even more vague than my recollections usually are,
>that there is some sort of universality (or at least wide-spreaded-ness(?)) to
>the tune.
Such a claim was made (I don't know on what evidence, 'cause I've
never bothered to look at the book, and certainly didn't attend
the lectures) by Leonard Bernstein in a fling at grandiose
intellectuality (or an attempt to ride Chomsky's coattails,
or a feint to shake off the lingering shame of having been
caught out by Tom Wolfe; or all of the above, perhaps) during
a series of lectures (the Norton Lectures, maybe?) at Harvard
about thirty years ago. I have no reason to believe it was original
with Bernstein.
ObAUE: I knew a woman who'd been misled by the spelling "nyah-nyah"
as a child, and grew up thinking that children elsewhere taunted
their disfavored peers by chanting /nai@ nai@/. (Do I have that
right? Do I give a fuck?)
Lee Rudolph
Maria Conlon
[...]
>ObAUE: I knew a woman who'd been misled by the spelling "nyah-nyah"
>as a child, and grew up thinking that children elsewhere taunted
>their disfavored peers by chanting /nai@ nai@/. (Do I have that
>right? Do I give a fuck?)
I think I'm going to sound like an oddball here, (as the woman in Lee's
example perhaps was) but I can't recall ever actually hearing the
"nyah-nyah" thing from an actual child of my acquaintance in my own
childhood. I may have heard it in movies as a kid, and I heard it from
other people (who were mimicking kids) after I grew up.
But no one on my street ever said it. We were more inclined to say
things like "now you're gonna get it" to the same "tune" as nyah-nyah.
Speaking of childhood things, does anyone remember a game called "Jail"?
It was sort of like "Hide and Seek," but I can't remember the details.
(Late 40s-early 50s, 23rd Street in Detroit. A very mixed
neighborhood -- Mexicans, Blacks, Southern Whites, Lithuanian and Polish
DPs...)
Golgo13
> Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
> taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
> of the world) is this particular chant?
I love these sorts of questions. In Japan the practice is taunt in that
manner by pressing the index just beneath your eye and then pulling
downward while saying "behhhhhh!"
Cheers,
DLS
--
D. Sosnoski
gol...@mindspring.com
"Friends are people you can talk to ...
without words when you have to." - E.P.
K1912
Maria Conlon wrote:
[...]
>I think I'm going to sound like an oddball here, (as the woman in Lee's
>example perhaps was) but I can't recall ever actually hearing the
>"nyah-nyah" thing from an actual child of my acquaintance in my own
>childhood.
Maria, I'm astonished! The "nyah-nyah" thing was so prevalent in my childhood
that even my imaginary friends said it.
<snip>
George
K1912
H.W.M.
jensens wrote:
> And you replace the NN with the name of the poor victim...
I do not know if this place is known too widely, but here in Finland the kids
talk about a "pussauskoppi" which literally would be translated as a
'kissing-cabinet'. I can not think what it could derive from, maybe an
'uimakoppi' which is a small shack on the beach to change your clothes in.
The game is very popular amongst school kids. If a boy and a girl are caught
talking a crowd suddenly surrounds them
pushing the couple together and chant:
"X and Y ne yhteen soppii
huomenna viedään pussauskoppii
sieltä kuuluu niks naks
niille syntyy karvanen laps"
I am not too good in translating poetry, but let us try:
"X and Y they are a fitting pair
take them to the kissing cabinet where
we shall hear a knick and a knack
they shall beget a hairy brat
So the 'kissing cabinet' is apparently a place to 'make out' as the kids know
too much kissing causes a child to emerge.
The kid is these days usually hairy, but in my time it could be a black or a
handicapped kid. Now thinking of this I find it quite interesting you can find
a real moralistic warning in this kids' chant. Not only you will get a child,
but you'll get a child which has, by the standards of that time I might
emphasize, something 'wrong' with it as well.
John Holmes
Perchprism wrote in message
<19980918120148...@ng04.aol.com>...
>It can be rendered in 3/8 thus: DDDBBEDDDBBB (legato, presto) (key of G
Major
>shown)
I made a simple MIDI file of this (since H.W.M. asked for one). If
anyone wants a copy I'll email it - it's only a few hundred bytes.
Regards,
John.
hol...@smart.net.au
email copies of any replies would be appreciated.
Perchprism
Henry wrote:
>From: "H.W.M." <mun...@spam.com>
>Date: 9/20/98 8:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3604F4FD...@spam.com>
>jensens wrote:
>
>> And you replace the NN with the name of the poor victim...
>
>I do not know if this place is known too widely, but here in Finland the kids
>talk about a "pussauskoppi" which literally would be translated as a
>'kissing-cabinet'. I can not think what it could derive from, maybe an
>'uimakoppi' which is a small shack on the beach to change your clothes in.
>The game is very popular amongst school kids. If a boy and a girl are caught
>talking a crowd suddenly surrounds them
>pushing the couple together and chant:
>
>"X and Y ne yhteen soppii
>huomenna viedään pussauskoppii
>sieltä kuuluu niks naks
>niille syntyy karvanen laps"
>
>I am not too good in translating poetry, but let us try:
>
>"X and Y they are a fitting pair
>take them to the kissing cabinet where
>we shall hear a knick and a knack
>they shall beget a hairy brat
<snip>
American schoolyard chant:
"M and F, sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes M with a baby carriage."
Robert Lieblich
>
> Perchprism wrote in message
> <19980918120148...@ng04.aol.com>...
>
> >It can be rendered in 3/8 thus: DDDBBEDDDBBB (legato, presto) (key of G
> Major
> >shown)
>
> I made a simple MIDI file of this (since H.W.M. asked for one). If
> anyone wants a copy I'll email it - it's only a few hundred bytes.
I have been going quietly bonkers the last two or three days as my
between-the-ears audio system plays a steady loop of three or four
measures that begins with a musical phrase quite similar to nyah-nyah,
etc. I thought it came from one of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, but I
played them through and didn't spot it. Unfortunately, at the end of
the first repetition of the measures the same nyah-nyah phrase repeats
before the music goes on to new material, and I can't get the looping to
stop. So I can't spin the music out mentally until I remember what it
is.
I'll probably break through some time in the next few months, so you can
expect a posting along about January reporting the name of the piece.
Unless someone beats me to it.
Bob Lieblich
Geoff Butler
>
>I have been going quietly bonkers the last two or three days as my
>between-the-ears audio system plays a steady loop of three or four
>measures that begins with a musical phrase quite similar to nyah-nyah,
>etc.
A friend of a friend had this sort of problem, so he kept a notepad and
pencil by the side of the bed. One night, he woke up with a blinding
flash of inspiration, picked up the notepad, and wrote it all down. Next
morning, there it was: "brlrehtve frooni weubc wdi kuandh bbrrrzlt".
-ler
Larry Phillips
newsgroups, postings on Cimpuserve, and in other areas. I always took
it to be just a variant spelling of 'nyah na nyah na nyah na' (which is
pretty much the way I hear the kid's taunt). I have been reading in
anticipation of this variant showing up, but so far, nothing.
My question: Is it a variant spelling, or is it something else
altogether?
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Sixty billion gigabits can do much. It even does windows.
-- Fred Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, 1980
Patrick Gillard
<cha...@cs.uri.edu> writes
>Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
>taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
>of the world) is this particular chant?
>PS: I don't recall seeing an answer to this in the Opies' book on nursery
>rhymes.
>
I used to work with someone who did a university thesis on this very
subject. I'll see if I can find out where he is and where it is.
(I think he did a comparative study of several languages, if I remember
rightly)
--
Patrick Gillard
DK
>On 18 Sep 1998 19:23:27 GMT, will...@ahecas.AHEC.EDU (Gary Williams,
>Business Services Accounting) wrote:
>
>'Bye Bye Baby Bunting, Father's gone
>a-hunting' etc. The remainder is, fo course, far to non-pc and
>role-stereotypic to repeat in these enlightened days.
You mean like the 1840's joke in "The Arkansas Traveler"? Follows:
Traveler: Excuse me, sir, but is that your wife over there?
Farmer: Why, yessir, that is.
T: Well, isn't that kind of a short dress for a grown woman to be
wearing?
F: Well sir, it'll be long enough before she gets another one.
--Katrina
nancy g.
> Fot years, I have been seeing the phrase "neener neener neener", in
> newsgroups, postings on Cimpuserve, and in other areas. I always took
> it to be just a variant spelling of 'nyah na nyah na nyah na' (which is
> pretty much the way I hear the kid's taunt). I have been reading in
> anticipation of this variant showing up, but so far, nothing.
>
> My question: Is it a variant spelling, or is it something else
> altogether?
I don't think it's a variant spelling. But it's not "something else
altogether" either -- it's a different phrase used to express exactly
the same concept.
"Nyah nyah" and "Neener neener" are related in the same sense that
"Yippee!" and "Hooray!" are.
nancy g
whose kids have southern friends who insist that
my (Massachusetts) kids are saying "Neenah".
Eric The Read
> I love these sorts of questions. In Japan the practice is taunt in that
> manner by pressing the index just beneath your eye and then pulling
> downward while saying "behhhhhh!"
Don't you stick your tongue out as well? And isn't the canonical form
"beeeDA!"? Of course, it's hard to say "da" while sticking your tongue
out, which probably explains why I've only heard the complete version in
anime, where they're not restricted by such silly things as mouth
movements.
-=Eric
Cissy . Thorpe
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Larry Phillips wrote:
> Fot years, I have been seeing the phrase "neener neener neener", in
> newsgroups, postings on Cimpuserve, and in other areas. I always took
> it to be just a variant spelling of 'nyah na nyah na nyah na' (which is
> pretty much the way I hear the kid's taunt). I have been reading in
> anticipation of this variant showing up, but so far, nothing.
>
> My question: Is it a variant spelling, or is it something else
> altogether?
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Sixty billion gigabits can do much. It even does windows.
> -- Fred Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, 1980
>
> http://cr347197-a.surrey1.bc.wave.home.com/larry/
>
>
The ONLY other person I have heard that from is my ex-husband...and he
was certifiable! Also from 6-Shooter Junction, Texas and of Polish decent.
My 2p
Cissy
Henry Tickner
<lar...@home.com> writes
>Fot years, I have been seeing the phrase "neener neener neener", in
>newsgroups, postings on Cimpuserve, and in other areas. I always took
>it to be just a variant spelling of 'nyah na nyah na nyah na' (which is
>pretty much the way I hear the kid's taunt). I have been reading in
>anticipation of this variant showing up, but so far, nothing.
>
>My question: Is it a variant spelling, or is it something else
>altogether?
old-style ambulance or police siren (say, musical notes G E G E G E).
--
Henry Tickner
The 'nospam' is my ISP's domain, the 'boudoir' is mine.
DK
>I do not know if this place is known too widely, but here in Finland the
kids
>talk about a "pussauskoppi" which literally would be translated as a
the 'kissing cabinet' is >apparently a place to 'make out' as the kids know
>too much kissing causes a child to emerge.
This makes me think of an adolescent party game which used to be played in
California. The boys lined up on one side of the room and the girls on the
other, and then the lights were turned out. Boys and girls would try for the
one they had wanted before it got dark, and after a few seconds the lights
were turned on again. Any couple caught still together (even be it one
holding resolutely to the arm of a fleeing other) had to go into the closet
for five minutes, after which much teasing and ragging would ensue about
what might have happened in the closet.
--Katrina
Donna Richoux
> Kids in playgrounds in the USA use the sing-song "nyah nyah na-nyah nyah" to
> taunt, tease, insult, etc. other kids. How widespread (across the playgrounds
> of the world) is this particular chant?
> /C.M. Strauss
> PS: I don't recall seeing an answer to this in the Opies' book on nursery
> rhymes.
It seems as though half of the children's songs I've heard in the
Netherland are to this tune, or a slight variation. The Dutch have many
wonderful qualities, but imaginative musicians they ain't.
Peter remembered that "Ring/Rosy" is sung to this -- I can also offer "A
Tisket, A Tasket, a green and yellow basket, I wrote a letter to my love
and on the way I lost it..."
Best ---- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
> American schoolyard chant:
> "M and F, sitting in a tree
> K-I-S-S-I-N-G
> First comes love
> Then comes marriage
> Then comes M with a baby carriage."
But in case anyone is confused, I think we should make clear that this
chant is *not* sung to the Unversal Nyah-nyah tune, but to its own
tuneful chant.
Best --- Donna Richoux
Eric The Read
> Peter remembered that "Ring/Rosy" is sung to this -- I can also offer "A
> Tisket, A Tasket, a green and yellow basket, I wrote a letter to my love
> and on the way I lost it..."
I don't remember where I heard this, but a rather gruesome variant of
this is:
A tisket, a tasket,
A head in a basket.
It cannot answer
the questions you ask it.
-=Eric