Re: Kick the Can, with on-topic metaphorical sense

On Sep 11, 5:11 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
TsuiDF <stephanie.mitch...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
On Sep 11, 9:53 pm, tinwhistler <ozziemal...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>
(We said "Ally,
ally [all ye, all ye] in *come* free" to the successful hiders.)

I don't remember playing 'Kick the Can', but I do remember Hide and
Seek, and how after we moved to the US (when I was about 5) I was
puzzled by the call of (as I heard it) 'ally ally oxen free'. The
'ally' I evidently understood as something like 'all ye' even though
it sounded like 'olly' (not trying to get personal here, you
understand). But -- 'oxen'? 'Ox in'? What the heck was that
supposed to be?

The best explanatin I've heard is that it came from German "alle, alle
auch sind frei", but I can't find evidence of that phrase being used
in German.

Where I grew up (eastern Massachusetts in the late 50s/early 60s) the
phrase had morphed into something that sounded like "Olly Olly Entry".
I also figured it must have something to do with "all ye", and then
the "entry" part must have meant something like "come in", calling
everyone to come home.

I remember having arguments with a few kids from another neighborhood,
who insisted that it wasn't "entry" but "in free". We were bigger than
they were, though, so "entry" prevailed.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Kawa z niemieckiego obozu koncentracyjnego
    ... my knowledge of German is irrelevant -unless you want to claim ... form resembles the sentence over the gate of the Buchenwald camp. ... the slogan was _not_ the phrase from Buchenwald. ... "scandals" are what a certain journalism seems to ...
    (soc.culture.polish)
  • Re: Why do you like Mozarts music?
    ... phrase bla bla point... ... >>> you can hear clear echoes of the German language in that melody. ... The connection between German sentences often having subsidiary ...
    (rec.music.classical.recordings)
  • Re: Kawa z niemieckiego obozu koncentracyjnego
    ... because a very similar phrase ... The phrase on the coffee advertisement, on the other hand, ... knowledge of german, such trifle facts are easily ignored. ... and finally by the Nazi movement. ...
    (soc.culture.polish)
  • Re: Why do you like Mozarts music?
    ... > phrase bla bla point... ... > The connection between German sentences often having subsidiary ... language, so deep that often even speakers of a foreign language who ...
    (rec.music.classical.recordings)
  • Re: who invented "arbeit macht frei"?
    ... The phrase was common in German from the 19th century ... onwards as part of the strong body of teaching on the ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)