Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

A common modern version is:[2]

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

The scholars Iona and Peter Opie noted that many variants have been recorded, some with additional words such as "... O. U. T. spells out, And out goes she, In the middle of the deep blue sea"[3] or "My mother told me/says to pick the very best one, and that is Y-O-U/you are [not] it";[3] while another source cites "Out goes Y-O-U."[4]

The first record of a similar rhyme, called the "Hana, man," is from about 1815, when children in New York City are said to have repeated the rhyme:

Hana, man, mona, mike;

Barcelona, bona, strike;

Hare, ware, frown, vanac;

Harrico, warico, we wo, wac.[3]

Henry Carrington Bolton discovered this version to be in the US, Ireland and Scotland in the 1880s but was unknown in England until later in the century.[3] Bolton also found a similar rhyme in German:

Ene, tene, mone, mei,

Pastor, lone, bone, strei,

Ene, fune, herke, berke,

Wer? Wie? Wo? Was?[3]

Variations of this rhyme, with the nonsense/counting first line have been collected since the 1820s, such as this one, which includes the 'toe' and 'olla' from Kipling's version:

Eenie, Meenie, Tipsy, toe;

Olla bolla Domino,

Okka, Pokka dominocha,

Hy! Pon! Tush!

This was one of many variants of "counting out rhymes" collected by Bolton in 1888.[5]

A Cornish version collected in 1882 runs:

Ena, mena, mona, mite,

Bascalora, bora, bite,

Hugga, bucca, bau,

Eggs, butter, cheese, bread.

Stick, stock, stone dead – OUT.[6]

One theory about the origins of the rhyme is that it is descended from Old English or Welsh counting, similar to the old Shepherd's count "Yan Tan Tethera" or the Cornish "Eena, mena, mona, mite".[3]

Another possibility is that British colonials returning from India introduced a doggerel version of an Indian children's rhyme used in the game of carom billiards:

baji neki baji thou,

elim tilim latim gou.[7]

Another possible origin is from a Swahili poem brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans: Iino ya mmiini maiini mo.[8]

A possible origin is a centuries-old, possibly Old Saxon, divination rhyme. This was shown in 1957 by the Dutch philologists Jan Naarding and Klaas Heeroma of the Nedersaksisch Instituut (Low Saxon Institute) at the University of Groningen.[9] The rhyme was recorded in 1904 by Nynke van Hichtum in Goor in the eastern Netherlands.

Anne manne miene mukke,

Ikke tikke takke tukke,

Eere vrouwe grieze knech,

Ikke wikke wakke weg.

Some versions of this rhyme use the racial slur "nigger" instead of "tiger". Iona and Peter Opie quote the following version:

Eena, meena, mina, mo,

Catch a nigger by his toe;

If he squeals let him go,

Eena, meena, mina, mo.[3]

This version was similar to that reported by Henry Carrington Bolton as the most common version among American schoolchildren in 1888.[10] It was used in the chorus of Bert Fitzgibbon's 1906 song "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo":

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,

Catch a nigger by the toe,

If he won't work then let him go;

Skidum, skidee, skidoo.

But when you get money, your little bride

Will surely find out where you hide,

So there's the door and when I count four,

Then out goes you.[11]

It was also used by Rudyard Kipling in his "A Counting-Out Song", from Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, published in 1935.[12] This may have helped popularise this version in the United Kingdom where it seems to have replaced all earlier versions until the late twentieth century.[3]

Iona and Peter Opie pointed out in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) that the word "nigger" was common in American folklore, but unknown in any English traditional rhyme or proverb.[3] This, combined with evidence of various other versions of the rhyme in the British Isles pre-dating this post-slavery version, would seem to suggest that it originated in North America, although the apparently American word "holler" was first recorded in written form in England in the 14th century, whereas according to the Oxford English Dictionary the words "Niger" or "'nigger" were first recorded in England in the 16th century with their current disparaging meaning. The 'olla' and 'toe' are found as nonsense words in some 19th century versions of the rhyme.

There are considerable variations in the lyrics of the rhyme, including from early twentieth century in the United States of America:

Eeny, meeny, miny moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers make him pay,

Fifty dollars every day.[3]

During the Second World War, an AP dispatch from Atlanta, Georgia reported: "Atlanta children were heard reciting this wartime rhyme:

Eenie, meenie, minie, moe,

Catch the emperor by his toe.

If he hollers make him say:

'I surrender to the USA.'"[13]

A distinct version of the rhyme in the United Kingdom, collected in the 1950s & 1960s, is:

Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo.

Put the baby on the po.

When he's done,

Wipe his bum.

And tell his mother what he's done.[14] (Alternatively: Shove the paper up the lum)[15]

The most common version in New Zealand is:

Eeny, meeny, miny moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he squeals, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny moe.

Pig snout you're out.[4]

• In 1993, a high school teacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provoked a student walkout when she said, in reference to poor test performance, "What did you do? Just go eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by the toe?" The school's district superintendent recommended the teacher "lose three days of pay, undergo racial sensitivity training, and have a memorandum detailing the incident placed in her personnel file".[16]
• A jocular use of a form of the rhyme by a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, encouraging passengers to sit down so the plane could take off, led to a 2003 lawsuit charging the airline with intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Two versions of the rhyme were attested in court; both "Eeny meeny miny mo, Please sit down it's time to go" and "Pick a seat, it's time to go". The passengers in question were African American and stated that they were humiliated due to what they called the "racist history" of the rhyme. A jury returned a verdict in favor of Southwest and the plaintiffs' appeal was denied.[17]
• In May 2014, an unbroadcast outtake of BBC motoring show Top Gear showed presenter Jeremy Clarkson reciting the rhyme and deliberately mumbling a line which some took to be "catch a nigger by his toe".[18] In response to accusations of racism, Clarkson apologised to viewers that his attempts to obscure the line "weren't quite good enough".[19]
• In 2017, the retailer Primark pulled a T-shirt from its stores that featured the first line of the rhyme as spoken by The Walking Dead character Negan, overlaid with an image of his baseball bat. A customer, minister Ian Lucraft, complained the T-shirt was "fantastically offensive" and claimed the imagery "relates directly to the practice of assaulting black people in America."[20]

There are many scenes in books, films, plays, cartoons and video games in which a variant of "Eeny meeny ..." is used by a character who is making a choice, either for serious or comic effect. Notably, the rhyme has been used by killers to choose victims in the 1994 films Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers,[21][22] the 2003 film Elephant,[23] and the sixth-season finale of the AMC television series The Walking Dead.

In Let the Tiger Go, a documentary on tiger conservation released on YouTube in 2017, the poem is read by Alan Rabinowitz in advocacy for ending the poaching of tigers for their body parts.[24] The very title of the documentary is implied to be an allusion to the poem.

• Nursery rhyme
• Akka bakka bonka rakka
• En Den Dino
• Ip dip

• The counting-out rhymes of children: their antiquity, origin, and wide distribution; a study in folk-lore, Henry Carrington Bolton, 1888 (online version at archive.org)
• More Counting-out Rhymes, H. Carrington Bolton in The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 10, No. 39 (Oct. - Dec., 1897), pp. 313–321. Published by: American Folklore Society DOI: 10.2307/533282 Stable URL: (online version at JStor)
• Gregor, Walter, 1891: Counting-out rhymes of children (online version at archive.org
• SKVR XII1 2837. Alatornio. PLK. A 2212. -15 (online version at SKVR.fi)
• Ikola, Osmo: Entten tentten teelikamentten. Erään lastenlorun arvoitus. Virittäjä 1/2002. Kotikielen Seura. Viitattu 11.12.2011 (pdf at kotikielenseura.fi)