Hatrack River Forum: The first 208--Come out, come out, wherever you are

This is topic The first 208--Come out, come out, wherever you are in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

I just noticed that Orson Scott Card's member number is 209.

Considering this is his board, I am a little confused who the first 208 members are.

All-EE All-EE IN-COME-FREE!!!

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

You don't yell "Ollie ollie oxen free?"

Posted by IrishAphrodite19 (Member # 1880) on :

Hum...You know, you can just go seach for the fisr 208 members.

However, if you do that you will discover that the first 3 are not on the board anymore.

~Irish

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

I think you spelled "ollie" better then me, BUT I always shouted "in-come-free" to let other players know they are free to come in and not get out or tagged.

Is it "oxen?"

Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :

We always said "oxen". We never knew why, but we said it anyway.

Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :

So close.

Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :

Wait, I'm 206? I Could have sworn I was #211. Huh.

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

Why do people say oxen?
hmmm...

So Jake, how did you get to beat Orson to the board? Are you related?

[ April 03, 2005, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: lem ]

Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :

Those ancient sayings - especially children's sayings - are always hard to trace, and usually the explanations are 'JUST-SO' stories invented long after the fact.

It might be that "in come free" is the older version, and it degenerated to "oxen free" just because kids don't always hear what's being said.

But it's just as possible that the cry "olly olly oxen free" originated as a warning through a rural neighborhood that oxen had gotten loose, and everybody would gather to hunt them down and bring them back. Loose sheep are a problem, but loose oxen are potentially dangerous; also, oxen were more likely to be owned by a village as a whole or at least relied on by the whole village to help with the tillage of their fields.

So when children played hide and seek, they might have used an existing "gathering cry" to signal that the game was over and everybody should come in.

Or not. Who knows?

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Yo.

Posted by Troubadour (Member # 83) on :

Hi there.

Posted by xnera (Member # 187) on :

#187 reporting as ordered. [Big Grin]

Posted by foundling (Member # 6348) on :

Hmmm...
But wouldnt it then drive everybody crazy when the kids played hide and seek? All the villagers rushing out to the call of "ollie ollie oxen free", searching desperatly for thier oxen, only to learn it was little Tommy and Jojo playing again. I dont know. Sounds annoying to me.

Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :

How do you look up member numbers?

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

"All the, All the OUTS in Free."

Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :

Watch out! It's the crazy cow!

(obscure Korean film reference)

On second thought, that shouldn't be obscure. It's a great flick - go rent yourself The Way Home.

Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :

Glenn, yours is the coolest explanation I've seen. Way better than mine. [The Wave]

Got any source on that, or are you just better than I am at coming up with just-so etymologies!

Posted by Coccinelle (Member # 5832) on :

Random House word of the day has an interesting article on the origins of the phrase

quote:
The phrase is used in a variety of children's chasing games, especially hide-and-(go-)seek...

The original form of the phrase was something like all in free or all's out come in free, both standing for something like all who are out can come in free. These phrases got modified to all-ee all-ee (all) in free or all-ee all-ee out(s) in free; the -ee is added, and the all is repeated, for audibility and rhythm.

From here the number of variants takes off, and we start seeing folk etymologies in various forms. The most common of these has oxen replacing out(s) in, giving all-ee all-ee oxen free; with the all-ee reinterpreted as the name Ollie, we arrive at your phrase, which, according to the Dictionary of American Regional English, is especially common in California. Norwegian settlement areas have Ole Ole Olsen's free. For the out(s) in phrase, we also see ocean, oxford, ax in, awk in, and even oops all in.

Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :

But then you can't say something cool like,

"The oxen of the village
would help with all the tillage."

Kinda poemy.

Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :

Nope, not related. Neither are many of the other people with low member numbers, actually. If dmichael had been just a tiny bit less asinine, OSC would have joined the forum long before I did. As it was, though, I had to sign up to rebut some ridiculous and offensive thing that he'd said, and didn't waste any time doing so.

Of course, then I chickened out and didn't respond, as I recall, but still--it got me to register.

I'm better known here by my later handle, Noemon, by the way.

Posted by IrishAphrodite19 (Member # 1880) on :

You can seach member numbers by going to the search page and entering a member number in the Seach by Registered Member Number box.

~Irish

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Hey, IrishAphrodite! I haven't seen you here in ages! Glad to see you back.

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

quote:
Ole Ole Olsen's free

I roginally thought this said Orson's free and thought. "How cool is that?!"

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

I always figured it had its roots in French somehow. Like Allez allez aux en something.

Know where I got that idea from? OSC's story "The Originist" where he talks about the origins of nursery rhymes.

Posted by IrishAphrodite19 (Member # 1880) on :

Noemon, I am a constant lurker. I just don't often have much to say. It makes me feel special that you noticed my "return" though. Thanks! [Big Grin]

~Irish

Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :

But there's no list of member names and numbers?

Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :

Try this link....

Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :

afr, I was thinking of the "Ring around the rosy/Wrinkly Grandma Posey" bit from "The Originist," as well. [Smile]

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

That's still one of my top five favorite stories. I like to refer to it. [Smile]

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :

Reason: The first two-hundred or so people were imported from an earlier version of the board. Their numbers were allotted alphabetically. Other people joined later. The ones who were imported have no join date, just: A Long Time Ago!

End.

Posted by Palimpsest (Member # 6897) on :

What if we've forgotten the passwords to our old name and no longer have the email address it was registered to? Not that I have a account that old, but my obsession with piddling minutia at least allows us to assume that these people didn't leave the forum.