Olly-olly-oxen-free
DK
corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend to believe
Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience), but would like this
confirmed anyway, by way of leading up to my real question: what the hell
does "all the, all the, outs in free" mean, then, anyway?
--Katrina
SLHinton17
On Fri, Jun 4, 1999, "DK" <cooper17...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
>corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free".
**********************
Hi. Katrina -- I never heard "Olly-olly-oxenfree" until I came to California
in 1937. In the '20s, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we said "Bee, bee, bumblebee; all's
out can come in free!." "All's out" was short for "all that's out" meaning
"everyone who is still hiding." and the whole phrase meant that all who were
still hidden could come in free. It was announcement by the "it" person that he
or she had to quit the game, and was giving up.
Dick's version sounds like it means exactly the same thing.
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Bob Lipton
>
> I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
> Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience), but would like this
> confirmed anyway, by way of leading up to my real question: what the hell
> --Katrina
It means "In this game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, the Hiding Phase is over and
now I go to seek."
Bob
N.Mitchum
-----
> corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend to believe
> Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience),
Dick's is one accepted version of the children's call, which I
remember hearing as "Olly olly otsen free." The change to "oxen"
may be an adult's attempt to make it slightly more sensible.
------
> [...] my real question: what the hell
> does "all the, all the, outs in free" mean, then, anyway?
>.....
It's from the game of hide-and-seek. It's shouted to tell all the
kids still hiding that they can come in, that they've beaten the
seeker.
----NM
Donna Richoux
> I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
> corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend to believe
> Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience), but would like this
> confirmed anyway, by way of leading up to my real question: what the hell
> does "all the, all the, outs in free" mean, then, anyway?
This sounds like the kind of logical theory people are always making up
to explain children's nonsense (cf Ring Around the Rosie). As far as I
can tell, such theories never turn out to be the true history.
The Opies' book "The Lore and Language of School Children" does not
include the phrase "Olly olly oxen free." Maybe they do in another book.
But they do list "olly-olly-ee" as an "end-of-game" call. Then, they go
on at great length to document several dozen "truce terms," which appear
to mean "Time out, stop playing, wait a minute." These are used in all
sorts of games. "Olly-olly-ee' is also used as a truce term, and it
appears to belong to a whole family of truce terms, used in neighboring
locations:
arley
ballow
bar
barbee
barley (the prevailing term)
barley-bees
barley-o
barley-play
barleys
barlow
barrels
bars
bees (cf Sam Hinton's post about Bee, bee, bumblebee)
There are maps showing the distribution of these and many more truce
terms across the UK. This "barley" group goes up the west of England up
into most of Scotland. (So who is documenting US folklore in this
detail? I ask you.)
It seems to me that difference between an American's "olly" and the
British "arley" is trivial.
So I'm saying that children have passed along this term, one to another,
for centuries. And oral cultures mutate faster than written ones.
I'm quit willing to believe that the "oxen free" part is a corruption of
"outs in free." In my California childhood, around 1960, the call was
"Olly, olly, oxen free-O." Can't forget the "O."
There was an old Charlie Brown cartoon in which, as I recall, Lucy is
shouting "Olly olly oxen free-o! OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE-O!" Then Linus
comes up and snootily says, "It's 'Ally, ally, out are in free," and
Lucy blushes. I don't know where C. Schultz got his "official
interpretation" from any more than where your novelist got his.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
> DK wrote:
> -----
> > I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
> > corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend to believe
> > Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience),
> >.....
>
> Dick's is one accepted version of the children's call, which I
> remember hearing as "Olly olly otsen free." The change to "oxen"
> may be an adult's attempt to make it slightly more sensible.
I just have to say that adults aren't the only ones who try to make
sense out of nonsense. Children do it *all the time.* It's gotta be a
basic process of language acquisition. When you look at the Opies'
documentation on the progression of children's rhymes, from place to
place and decade to decade, you can't help but see that. Children are
willing to repeat what they hear, even if it is meaningless, but they
are also quite willing to change it slightly to be more meaningful.
As to the oxen/otsen, I'm sure there was local variation.
Best --- Donna Richoux
Eugene Yevgeni
<<It means "In this game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, the Hiding Phase is over and
now I go to seek.">>
No, it means, "All but a few players have either been caught or have left
their places of hiding and reached home base. Those few OUTS get to be
treated as though they have come IN to home base for FREE, that is, without
danger of being declared caught."
I saw the phrase written in an Alley Oop cartoon some decades ago as
"Allee, allee outs in free!", though we used to yell, "Ollie, Ollie oxen (or
auction) free," having no idea what it meant, only what it was used for.
--
Respond by email to STEVEMACGREGOR at INFICAD dot COM
(or just reply to have your message deleted before reading)
-------------------------------------------------------
Stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!
nancy g.
> I'm quit willing to believe that the "oxen free" part is
> a corruption of "outs in free." In my California childhood,
> around 1960, the call was "Olly, olly, oxen free-O."
> Can't forget the "O."
Sigh. I'm getting rather tired of saying this so often, but ...
we did it differently in New England.
Growing up near Boston in the early 1960s, we all said
"Olly, olly, en-tree" (which I assumed as a child was the word
"entry", but as I got older, I remember wondering if it was a
corruption of "entree").
Everyone I knew said it that way, but there were some who
insisted the phrase was really *supposed* to be "Olly, olly,
in free".
nancy g.
oh, and we also called "My goose, one, two, three" when we
got back to home base. I know. Nobody in any other part
of the country ever said it that way. So what else is new?
Evan Kirshenbaum
> DK wrote:
> >
> > I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is
> > a corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend
> > to believe Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience), but
> > would like this confirmed anyway, by way of leading up to my real
> > question: what the hell does "all the, all the, outs in free"
> > mean, then, anyway?
>
> It means "In this game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, the Hiding Phase is over
> and now I go to seek."
Where I grew up, it meant that the Seeking Phase was over and all not
found had won and could come back safely. Until this point, you moved
from your hiding place at your own peril. The end of the Hiding Phase
was signaled by "Ready or not, here I come".
The derivation I had heard was that it came from German, something
like (I don't speak German) "Alle, Alle, ach, sind frei": "Hey
everybody, you're safe".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A little government and a little luck
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |are necessary in life, but only a
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |fool trusts either of them.
| P.J. O'Rourke
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Lee Rudolph
>The derivation I had heard was that it came from German, something
>like (I don't speak German) "Alle, Alle, ach, sind frei": "Hey
>everybody, you're safe".
Maybe. I grew up in a neighborhood of Cleveland which had
been historically German (there was actually a *Lutheran*
parochial school up the street), and still had as many
residents of German descent as of any other single ethnic
group (Henninger, Busch, Witthuhn, Kuhn, Dentzer, Wiest,
Vietor, Tiedemann, Schmitter,...), and I recall no child
ever using any variant other than "All-ee, all-ee, in-free!"
in a game of kick-the-can, tag, or hide-and-go-seek. (Of
course I never saw "all-ee" spelled, but the first syllable
was pronounced just like "all", with a different vowel than
the one we'd have used in "olive" [had we known of such a
bizarre Mediterranean comestible] or "olly".)
Lee Rudolph
Bob Lipton
>
> DK <cooper17...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> > I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
> > corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free". I usually tend to believe
> > Dick on this sort of thing (based on experience), but would like this
> > confirmed anyway, by way of leading up to my real question: what the hell
> > does "all the, all the, outs in free" mean, then, anyway?
>
SNIP
This reminds me. When I was a child -- late 50s, early 60s -- when you
farted, people were allowed to hit you in the upper arm with their
knuckles, until you had finished saying
Ailey Bailey, a bundle of straw,
Farting is against the law.
Once you had finished, they had to stop.
Bob
P&D Schultz
> <...> I grew up in a neighborhood of Cleveland which had
> been historically German (there was actually a *Lutheran*
> parochial school up the street), and still had as many
> residents of German descent as of any other single ethnic
> group (Henninger, Busch, Witthuhn, Kuhn, Dentzer, Wiest,
> Vietor, Tiedemann, Schmitter,...), and I recall no child
> ever using any variant other than "All-ee, all-ee, in-free!"
> in a game of kick-the-can, tag, or hide-and-go-seek. <...>
In Detroit (40s-50s), everyone said "all-ee all-ee outs in free." It was
pronounced just like that, and everyone knew what it meant. I never
heard this "oxen" nonsense till I was an adult. There's certainly no
mystery about it.
//P. Schultz
Donna Richoux
I saw the phrase written in an Alley Oop cartoon some decades ago as
> "Allee, allee outs in free!", though we used to yell, "Ollie, Ollie oxen (or
> auction) free," having no idea what it meant, only what it was used for.
I would say then, that yes, you knew exactly what the phrase *meant.*
What you didn't know (and no one else does, either) is its *etymology.*
Why people insist on children's terms and phrases as having some sort of
logical, identifiable etymology, when the etymologies of thousands and
thousands of ordinary "adult" words are just as mysterious, is beyond
me.
I like the "auction" spelling. Oxen, otsen, auction...
Best --- Donna Richoux
Bob Cunningham
said:
>Eugene Yevgeni <SteveMa...@USA.Net> wrote:
> I saw the phrase written in an Alley Oop cartoon some decades ago as
>> "Allee, allee outs in free!", though we used to yell, "Ollie, Ollie oxen (or
>> auction) free," having no idea what it meant, only what it was used for.
>I would say then, that yes, you knew exactly what the phrase *meant.*
>What you didn't know (and no one else does, either) is its *etymology.*
>Why people insist on children's terms and phrases as having some sort of
>logical, identifiable etymology, when the etymologies of thousands and
>thousands of ordinary "adult" words are just as mysterious, is beyond
>me.
Anyway, this is a chance to put in a plug for the AUE FAQ, which
has a long paragraph devoted to the phrase. You can find it at
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/aue/faq/faq.html#yollieollieoxenf
It's based on material from Jesse Sheidlower's Web site, and includes
a specific URL for the ollie-ollie-oxen material at that site. That
URL is no longer valid, though, while the following update does work:
http://www.randomhouse.com/jesse/?date=19970422
>I like the "auction" spelling. Oxen, otsen, auction...
There was an AUE thread about phrases like this in April 1996. In
that thread there is the tantalizing remark by Gary Williams:
There was quite an extensive discussion of this a few months ago.
'Tantalizing' because it's now unretrievable, 'a few months ago' in
April 1996 being beyond DejaNews's horizon.
In reading some of the articles in the 1996 thread I was surprised to
learn (once more?) that an alternative to 'ollie-ollie-oxen' is
'broken dishes'. I don't remember ever hearing that one when I was in
my kick-the-can years. Would anyone like to speculate about how it
came about?
Melancholy footnote: I find it somewhat sad to reflect on the fact
that while childhood can be fondly referred to as 'kick-the-can
years', my present time of life is more aptly described as
'kick-the-bucket years'.
--
"How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!" -- Emily Dickinson
Gwen Lenker
<bobl...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>This reminds me. When I was a child -- late 50s, early 60s -- when you
>farted, people were allowed to hit you in the upper arm with their
>knuckles, until you had finished saying
>
> Ailey Bailey, a bundle of straw,
> Farting is against the law.
Gee, when I was a kid in the late 50s, early 60s, I wasn't allowed to
say "farting." I'm glad we didn't have that hit-you-in-the-upper-arm
rule, too!
(No, I don't know why my mother thought "poopsie-poo" was ever so much
more delicate a word than "fart." Did it come into English from
French, perhaps?)
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Nice and witty post, Gwen.
To answer your question, no. In French, a fart is called _pet_. I
suppose when French-Canadians see "Pet Milk" and "Pet Store" while
watching Merkin TV, they smile.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Editor & Publisher, MALEDICTA
Santa Rosa, CA 95402, USA
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/
Donna Richoux
> Vietor, Tiedemann, Schmitter,...), and I recall no child
> ever using any variant other than "All-ee, all-ee, in-free!"
> in a game of kick-the-can, tag, or hide-and-go-seek. (Of
> course I never saw "all-ee" spelled, but the first syllable
> was pronounced just like "all", with a different vowel than
> the one we'd have used in "olive" [had we known of such a
> bizarre Mediterranean comestible] or "olly".)
Yeah, to be clearer, I should say that in my California dialect [1], the
spelling "olly" represents the same sound as the word "all." I'd rather
not get into the mess of which ASCII IPA symbol that is. But it is
certainly not the same as the sound in "ally" and "alley." Nor is it
anything like the British "all" which to me sounds almost like my "old."
[1] I'd say "in California" but someone would contradict me.
Best -- Donna Richoux
George F. Hardy
>
>
>On Fri, Jun 4, 1999, "DK" <cooper17...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>>I just read in a Phillip K. Dick novel that olly-olly-oxen-free is a
>>corruption of "all the, all the, outs in free".
"olly-olly-in-come-free" is what I knew as a kid. The game of
kick-the-can was over.
GFH
SLHinton17
>It means "In this game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, the Hiding Phase is over and
>now I go to seek."
*********************
Local variation in the rules of this game are fascinating! Seventy years ago,
Oklahoma kids at this point in the game would shout (after having counted by
fives to an agreed-upon total, often 500) "Bushel o' ree/ Bushel o' rye; /All's
not hid/ Holler 'I'" If anyone hollered "I," the "It"person would count to
another hundred by fives, then would either repeat the question or state firmly
"Here I come, ready or not!"
Truly Donovan
wrote:
>In Detroit (40s-50s), everyone said "all-ee all-ee outs in free."
Not everyone. Up in the northwest (almost but not quite in Ferndale),
we said "all-ee all-ee all home free."
--
Truly Donovan
reply to truly at lunemere dot com
fook...@my-deja.com
> Re: everybody's free to [perform oral sex on the livestock]
> ...Better hurry it's still legal in Pencil vain ya.
> Does PETA say: "make love, not hambugers"?
So, I guess it was from the French meaning:
Is the Oily Ox in yet?
OK, fine, don't laugh. Just remember, just cause it's legal doesn't
mean you have to do it.
...see ya in church tommorow.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Me Again
>Yeah, to be clearer, I should say that in my California dialect [1], the
>spelling "olly" represents the same sound as the word "all." I'd rather
>not get into the mess of which ASCII IPA symbol that is. But it is
>certainly not the same as the sound in "ally" and "alley." Nor is it
>anything like the British "all" which to me sounds almost like my "old."
>
>[1] I'd say "in California" but someone would contradict me.
In my part of California (Pomona, at the time, LA county), it was
ollie-ollie-ox-in-free-free-free. Pronounced "ollie" as in Stan and Ollie
(Laurel and Hardy), which is very close to all-e, but subtly different.
HTH
jc