Eeny meeny miny moe,
Catch a tiger by his toe.
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny meeny miny moe.
Everyone knows it right? Of course there's the older version with a less PC version of the word "tiger" but we'll stick with the newer one. It's a children's counting rhyme from the early 1800's and appears to be a staple in almost every part of the world, in many different languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe
My wife's family is Malaysian Chinese, with a fairly strong connection to the pre-independence British colonial history of the country, and the associated influences. My father in-law is both proud of this part of his heritage, and the place Malaysia was in those days, as well as being a staunch advocate for Chinese culture. It's actually a pretty decent middle ground as long as you don't dig too deeply. And hey, we're all allowed to have our opinions, especially those that perhaps are not always consistent with each other. I, for one, am a prime example of such hypocrisy from time to time. I think we all can be. Anyway, I digress. One of the wonderful and admirable things about my in-laws is their amazing grasp of language. Of course most Malaysians - especially the non-Malays - can speak multiple languages, but these guys take the cake. My wife for instance, can speak English (self-taught), Malay, Cantonese, workable Mandarin and Hakka, and get by in Tamil. That's pretty darn impressive. Plus she also spends some of her spare time learning Japanese and Dutch. Her family are all the same, whereas whilst I am proud of my grasp of English, struggle with much else. It's true I can get by in Malay and Cantonese, at least enough to order beer and food and direct a taxi, as well as Indonesian, but anything more than a quick food ordering or "how's it going" and I'm screwed.
Far out, I like to wander away from the main topic sometimes. Anyway, so when we were staying in Sungai Pelek in the in-laws house, we heard one of them reciting the above rhyme to one of our kids, likely Babs. Except the local version went something like this;
Eeny meeny miny moe,
Catch a tiger by his toe.
See who win, see who lose,
Eeny meeny miny moe.
OMG I am chortling quietly to myself as I write this. I am not sure if it's something lost in translation, but frankly it's a pisser, and just one of many examples of where language inter-relations can have comical and endearing results.
It's now a common catch-cry in our house, when responding to something: "see who win, see who lose!". Love it!
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