When Racism Slips Into Everyday Speech

[DirkGently]

61. But that was never "the underlying meaning."

That's the problem here. Something that went on for a long time at one point acquires a racist variation, so we're supposed to dump it on the historically incorrect theory that it's now always racist?

There are racist contortions of everything in our culture. That does not make everything "accidentally racist" as this idiotic article contends.

Origins[edit]
The first record of a similar rhyme 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]
The "Hana, man" was found by Henry Bolton 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 Scottish one ..

Hickery Pickery, pease scon
Where will this young man gang?
He'll go east, he'll go west,
he'll go to the crow's nest.
Hickery Pickery, Hickery Pickery[6]
More recognizable as a variation, which even includes the 'toe' and 'olla' from Kipling's version is

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.[7]

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.[8]
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, mea, mona, mite".[3]

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

ubi eni mana bou,
baji neki baji thou,
elim tilim latim gou.[9]
The rhyme inspired the song "Eena Meena Deeka" in the 1957 Bollywood film Aasha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe