Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?

On Jan 20, 1:42 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:26:43 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:3f3bbb5b-227a-4e01-bf63-b87b985e747e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

On Jan 20, 1:36 am, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Eeny meeny miney moe ( I don't dare say the next bit - it's not very
politically correct)
"Catch a tiger by the toe"???

An older version is 'catch a *** by the toe'.

Unknown where I came from.

is supposed to be the remnant of a very old counting
system - again using fours - (used by children to choose
who will be 'it') -
see:http://www.lakelanddialectsociety.org/counting_sheep.htm

Don't change the subject. It's a sequence of made-up words that
exhibit considerable similarity.

Nor is it at all clear that this particular children's rhyme
is related to the sheep-counting sequences.
.

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