Re: jinx, double jinx, and more

Keith GOERINGER skreiv:

Mini-survey question here. In the U.S., most people know the word
"jinx!", used when two people say the same thing at the same time.
For those who don't know what it is,

Yeah, I wish. This has spread to the very core of my own family, in a small town in a small country on the ouskirts of Europe. It was the first thing my son learned at school two years ago. His little sister learned it two minutes after they came home that day. I soon found it to be utterly stressing at the breakfast table and declared the house a jinx-free zone. They were a bit puzzled by my interest tonight.

it is mainly used among kids as a kind of "power play" or something.
You're talking to someone, and in the course of the conversation,
both people say the same word or phrase at the same time. The first
person to say "jinx!" is given some sort of power over or concession
by the other person.

So far, it's pretty much how my children do it.

If both people say "jinx!" at the same time, then "double jinx!"
comes next.)

If both say "jinx!" at the same time, then both are jinxed.

So, my question is about the fate of the person who isn't quite fast enough. In my experience, the person who gets "jinxed" is not allowed to talk again until the other party (reluctantly) says "unjinxed" or something.

Nah. The jinxee (?) is not allowed to talk until someone says his name. This can be added to by a third person saying "jinx minus!", which means that the spell is not over until the jinxer himself says the name. "If two people have jinxed eachother and then two people say "jinx minus!" at the same time, then you're not allowed to speak again forever", my daughter added with all her soon-to-be-six-year-old seriousity.

But at work a while ago, a colleague said something that I'd never
heard (and which I got no google hits for): "Pig, poke, you owe me
a Coke!" I *did* get some hits for "Pinch, poke, you owe me a Coke",
which I'd also never heard (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000235.html).

The whole Coke-owing thing is new to me, so I'm wondering who has heard (or said...) what, and I'm curious to see if there is any geographic patterning to it. I'm from Maryland originally, and the
Coke thing is totally alien to me. The "Pig, poke..." speaker lived
in various places, but said she remembers it from Colorado (northern).

My children says that if the jinxee talks too early, he owes the jinxer a pizza and a soda ("en pizza og en brus").

This has no impact on the question of geographic patterning in America, of which I know nothing at all, but it might tell something about which set of rules that has been practiced in the parts of America that's been able to spread it's culture right here in the next room.

I used to believe that it came through these over-speeded, under-animated, under-translated cartoon channels the children turn to as soon as you leave them in a room with even the remotest of controls. After inquiring tonight, I'm not so sure. I think the rules are a bit to advanced to be picked up from the Disney Channel.

--
Trond Engen
- often tempted to jinx them both and change their names
.