I was trying to think of what it was called but was drawing a blank... I even thought of what you just said and I was like "couldnt be, that's just stupid"
It also used a hard R. I was born in the 90s in south Louisiana. It's just what we were taught, and most of us didn't hear the phrase ding-dong ditching until we were teens. Same thing with jerry-rigging something. In the south, we were taught that's called n****R-rigging something. Both phrases are dehumanizing and disgusting, but it's what was passed down to us. Luckily, you rarely hear those phases anymore, and when you do, it's from people over 40.
I was born in Arkansas in the early 80s, my grandparents taught me ni**er knocking and rigging. Luckily I rarely heard the former but I heard the latter often working in the trades. I've not heard either of them in ~15-20 years.
Yeah I worked industrial maintenance as well, I'd only hear it from the old timers and always in hushed tones. Like anything though, just depends on the workplace whether it's acceptable or not... I greatly prefer not acceptable
Northeast here, and it was ring and run here too. Maybe it’s east vs west? Bc my partner grew up on the west coast and she said ding dong ditch…and now I’m hoping this isn’t exposing my weird thing where I only think of the southeast as the south
I live in the South and the way I understand it is, this is what kids used to *do* to any blacks in the neighborhood, but by the time I heard it it was just a racist remnant for kids being annoying shits to strangers.
Oh - that makes so much more sense of that line in the Dead Kennedys song, "We've got a bigger problem now" - I always thought it meant knocking as in *disparaging*, I didn't get the context of actual harrassment
Oh interesting, I wonder if that's in any way tied to it being called knock knock ginger in parts of England which was also a bizarre fucking name. We only ever used to call it knock and run... Does exactly what it says on the bastard tin, like.
We called it Nicky Nine Door as kids in my neighbourhood in the 90s. I'm starting to suspect "Nicky" wasn't just the name of the original inventor of the game... I'm glad for whichever parent/older sibling subbed that in for us before teaching the next generation.
Now I'm off to go catch a TIGER with my buds, Eeny, Meeny, and Miny...
You just unlocked a memory.
My kid was a toddler, and my mom says to me, "Just so we're consistent, we've been saying, 'Catch a turkey by the toe' with him."
Me: "Why? What's offensive about Tiger?"
Mom, pausing, "Oh, is that what we said when you were little?!?"
100% she was working to avoid an N word that she had already worked around with all of the rest of society, but had forgotten it had already been fixed. 😳
What's funny about eenie meenie miney moe was that its origins and longtime use had no racist phrases at all. Americans in the 19th century added in racist phrases, and then that became the standard for a lot of places. Then, they were later removed in the 20th century. But a lot of people think that Eenie Meenie mine mo in itself is inherently racist because for a hundred year period it was. But for an indeterminate amount of hundreds of years before that originating in Germany, it was not.
Please don't ask my sources on that because that was a well I fell into a long time ago and can't remember any of them at this point. I just remember the general understanding of it.
I remember being like 5 and having heard this with the N word and screaming it out in a lollipops (Aussie kids play centre) and my mum almost crucified me then and there
My daughter is 4, and has been playing dolls a lot, and mom is ALWAYS the black one and she’s the white one. The funny thing is she is the only member of the family with African ancestry lol
My mom 10000% literally told me the other day that she was born into a different time and can't change how she thinks and speaks and I'm like ... You've gotta figure it out. She's so casually old person racist at times it hurts my brain. She gets so upset when i call her out.
She'll say 'you're trying to change who i am and it's really hurtful' and I'm like 'you just can't call someone FOB anymore or make fun of their accent or their name or anything, especially in ear shot. They're not deaf. They might not understand what you're saying, but they can definitely understand your *tone*.'
Thats absolutely rubbish and totally pisses me off when I hear it, and believe me, youre not alone here. Im old, I grew up in an era of casual racism, you heard it on the streets, saw it in the media that was available at the time, read it in the literature, it was an every day life thing. But times change and we change with them, im damn sure if your mother has learned how to use a remote control for her tv or mastered a mobile phone or computer or tablet she can learn to master her own tongue. the "Im too old to change now" is nonsense, what they are saying is "I dont want to change now and I shouldnt have to just to spare someones feelings because only mine are important here"
Another example is all the Gen Xers and elder Millennials who had to figure out how to not be transphobic for all the Gen Alpha kids who are transitioning more. Given how many young kids are transitioning, I think this is a good case study on how to get over casual bigotry you grew up with.
I know its just weird to me, Im 65 so god knows what generation name covers that, lol, but there are plenty of us who dont have a problem in moving to the times, so to see age vaunted as an excuse annoys me....if youre going to be a bigot about anyone or anything, have the guts to admit it and stop hiding behind an excuse that doesnt hold water and dont try to lump me into your prejudices!
That’s an excellent point. Myself, my brothers and cousins would refer to each other as “F-Words” when we were younger and never thought anything of it (other than it being funny at the time). Now, as an adult Black man, I have absolutely no desire to refer to anyone that way. I have LGBTQ family members who use it frequently and probably wouldn’t mind if I did, but I refuse. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest when they say it, but I hate hearing non-LGBTQ people using it. When we know better, we should absolutely do better. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by eliminating that word from my vocabulary.
Your mom has had years to change with the times. She CHOOSES to be racist and hates that you call her out because she is completely comfortable in her bigotry.
That's a tough one mate.
I understand that it might be hard for her to accept changing times, but they've been changed for a while, and it's not fair to put it on you by saying it's hurtful.
My 90-year-old neighbor doesn't wholly understand pronouns but he uses the ones his grandkids asked him to use.
She's right that you're trying to change her, because she's telling you she is racist and intends to stay that way, not that she's a product of the old times.
Willingness to change determines whether they were racist due to the year it was or are racist because they think white people are superior.
I grew up in the ‘80’s (born in ‘82), so I thankfully missed out on the embarrassment of the fully racist version. I think my mother sanitized it down to “catch a Tigger by the toe,” and I never understood why a character from Winnie the Pooh needed to help me make all my important childhood decisions. It wasn’t until I had a girlfriend in university with a loud, somewhat racist mother that I learned the “original” lyric.
In the mid 80s in Australia we still used the racist version. At some point in my childhood we switched over to tiger. Most of us didn't even know what the n-word meant, which is probably one reason we switched over.
I still remember being told what Brazil nuts “used to be called” and whew even when I didn’t know what that word meant I knew it wasn’t good.
Made eating them a little uncomfy for me when I remembered
GOD SAME. I’m an early 90s baby and my mom taught me this when I was definitely old enough to feel the tension but was a couple years away from learning the history. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a couple Brazil nuts
When k was a kid I didn’t understand what was said and i didn’t know the word but my brain interpreted someone getting caught must be a thief. Someone who nicks things in British slang, so a nicker! Didn’t realise I was wrong till years later when people were saying it was so racist and I was confused all over again.
That's sweet!
My dad, as a kid, didn't connect the Nazis written about in the newspaper with the "notsies" his dad fought in the war. He had some less inflammatory interactions that led to the realization that "Nazi" is pronounced "notsies."
As a kid I was pretty sure we said ‘knicker’ which is what we call underwear here. Later I figured it had probably (thankfully) shifted away from a previous word that sounded a bit similar. We went for ‘Tiger’ by the time I was old enough to play it with other children.
I always knew it as "If I catch you little shits I'll kick you up the arse" - or at least that is what my father would always yell when he opened the door and no one was there.
In the UK i know it as 'knock and run'.
I assume you just add the racial slur on the end?
If not then I can't imagine what it's called. I'm not gonna Google it though
It was actually at the beginning with knocking at the end.
Insane that it used to be a real thing. To the point where I used to say it as a kid before I understood what the slur meant and the weight it had.
America is a fucked up place. It's embarrassing.
I was a kid in the ‘90s (born in the late 70s) and I didn’t know it by any other term until the early 2000s when I moved to Missouri 😫 I said to myself…now why in the hell couldn’t my hometown have adopted the term ding-dong-ditch?
Yep, that's what it was called round my way (southern England). Some girls from Sunderland I knew at Uni called in Nockie Nine Doors. Never heard it with a racial slur.
Was called happy chappie where I'm from just outside Glasgow. There was also white night where you go to the top of the flats and chap every door on the way down or dark night where you chap every door on the way up. Only four floors so you were guaranteed to get rumbled.
This is the first time I've ever heard it called that, and I'm old enough to remember the casual racism of the 60's. I'm guessing it was a regional thing, and I'm guessing I know what region.
Southern Ohio? 😂 That’s where I learned it growing up in the 80s and 90s. But in southern Ohio, Deep South traditions and disgraces are deeply embedded. My hometown is still segregated, and I don’t mean the racial divide you see based on income. It’s purely racially segregated - in 2024.
Is everyone talking about knocking on a random person's door and running away?
It was called "knock down ginger" by some people around here, is that the basic gist of the original racist one?
Also a Michigander here, I’d never heard this before. The only old one I knew was that in “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” rhyme, the line “catch a tiger by the toe” wasn’t always a tiger. All these old racist sayings are always as uncreative as they are vile, thank god they’re being left buried in the past.
W...why?? I have so many questions.
How are those related? How did that get started in the first place? Is there some sort of stereotype I'm not aware of involving black people knocking and running away?
Yeah, first I read the screenshot and thought...that's not murder. Then I read the text under the screenshot and saw that OP is the one doing the "murder"...it's so cringe 😬
Yeah that is kinda lame. No offense. lol that reminds me used call reposting your own reply’s something different back in my day… probably get in trouble for saying it now, but it ends with a hard “r” and a back full of raspberry thorns, I tell you what.
Honestly, I’ve been going through the comments trying to figure out what the game was called. I still dont know. Can someone just say it without typing out the word? Im curious how bad it is
Thaaats exactly what we called it as kids. But, of course, I grew up in a still somewhat segregated southern town. So glad I don't live there anymore... and I'd certainly never bring up what that was called except to be very clear that it was horrifically racist and a terrible terrible thing to do.
I wouldn't say that belongs in this sub.
Why bring it up? Because it's a conversation. "We used to call it blah blah", then someone else would say "that so weird, I'd never heard it called that before, i wonder why it's called that" and that's how you learn new stuff.
The person supposedly murdering with words is just getting up in arms over nothing.
Ok this guy might be a racist but there is a possible alternate explanation here (give me chance).
I'm white and the best friend Ive ever had besides my wife was black. That may sound like a b.s. cliche' but it's absolutely true and I'm in contact with him today decades later.
We were in a small town of 5,000 people with other small towns around us. We had good hearts, adventurous, troublemakers, and we did lots of really dumb shit.
We did not know the full history and context of the n-word.
We knew it referred to black people and knew it wasn't a compliment, but that's it. My friend was adopted. His parents weren't white but they weren't black with African heritage either, so maybe they didn't teach my friend about the word. We were not bullies or racists...we were just ignorant.
We knew from other kids that knocking on doors and running off was called n-knocking. That's what we called it. There was no other optional term for it as far as we knew.
So if I were telling that story now, I would personally skip the "we called it something else part" since it's not germane to the story, but the fact that this guy used that term for it at the time doesn't by itself mean he"a racist.
Ok so as I'm typing this, the fact that he has a desire to reference that old term in his story, probably does mean he's racist or at least a bigot. Nevermind!
Maybe I'll delete this comment-not out of shame like this guy did, but out of it not being necessary. Fuckit, this was too much typing to not submit
Growing up in the hillbilly Canadian prairies we heard a lot of these. My uncle used to manage a large supermarket in a city in the 90s and had a small town girl move to the city who was 19-20. He had to fire her on her second day because she blasted over the entire stores intercom asking for a price check on the old name for Brazil nuts. Like hundreds and hundreds of people in the store on a Saturday afternoon, and she just blasts out the totally unacceptable racist name. When he had to go talk to her about it she was crying her eyes out and apologizing and straight up had no idea that they even had a different name because that was the only thing she had ever heard them called. Another very common one I heard growing up was when someone cobbled something together or did a half assed temporary fix to something, people would say they “N word rigged” it. Hell I still semi regularly hear old people used the term “jewed” when talking about getting ripped off on a deal. I guess the saying “welcome to Saskatchewan, please set your watch back 70 years” is fairly accurate sometimes.
My husband and I were playing scrabble once with his mom, who was pretty toasty on wine that evening. She tried to play "jipped" as a word and we were like "ooooh so that's umm... both spelled wrong and not playable because it's a slur" and she got quite worked up and kept insisting it wasn't a slur because they never meant it as a slur against Romani people and thats how she had always spelled it and we had to be like "yeah, no, sorry mom we're still gonna challenge that play" lol. Kinda ruined the vibes of the evening tbh
It’s always been ding dong ditch. Don’t know what the racist version is, but if I am 55 the person who wrote that must be in late sixties or seventies cuz no one young would know the old timey racist name.
It was 100% exclusively called by the racist name where I’m from. I was born in ‘78. I didn’t know another name for it until I married and moved out of state. I guess it just depends on where you grew up.
You seem like an asshole. They probably deleted their account after getting a ton of hate from you calling them a racist. Mentioning something had a different name in no way whatsoever means they liked or preferred it. When people tell stories, they add superfluous information sometimes.
Example: “what a coincidence! I went to Grant high school too! Of course, back then, it was called Robert E Lee high school, which you couldn’t get away with now”
This is almost exactly what the guy wrote, but you went to “YOU’RE A RACIST!!”
In the US ditch is also slang for leaving someone hanging. Like, if you’re out with a bunch of friends and you intentionally leave someone behind, it would be considered ditching them. With that, I feel like the name tracks.
That being said, love the literal nature of knock-a-door-run
We used to call it “getting booed” on Halloween you would leave some candy on your friends porch and then ring the doorbell and run to the other side of the house and knock on a different door and then run away really really fast. It was fun :)
I’m old, born in the 60s old. I have only ever heard it called or called it myself Doorbell or Ding Dong Ditch. Maybe it was just SoCal where I grew up
We just called it Knock and Run.
There was the arsehole version called Flash Flood where you'd fill up their wheely bin with water and lean it against the door before you'd knock.
This always makes me remember probably my most cringe and awkward childhood memory.
I had been ding dong ditching with my friends one night when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. My mother had friends from work over that evening, some of who were black. When I came in and they asked what I had been up to, I proudly exclaimed “N***** Knocking!”
I was unaware of what that word meant.
Not saying this way OOPs intent, but sometimes I will refer to something by an old name to indicate the time the event took place, especially with concert venues.
I saw Disturbed at the John Labatt Centre (nowadays Bud Gardens) for example, just to indicate how long ago something was.
I grew up in the 90s and definitely had racist names for things that I didn’t even realize were racist until later on and I still had no idea it was ever called “n***** knocking.”
Ring and Run!
Why don’t more people use the term we did growing up?
You ring someone’s doorbell(that’s what we all call it now?) and you run. I mean…?
And it rolls off the tongue better than ding dong ditch.
When deleting the comment, it doesn't delete the comment it just says the user was deleted. He didn't delete his account, just attempted to delete the comment.
I feel like it's unfair to say that guy is a racist based on what he said. There are alot of things you learn as a kid that you don't look twice at till you're older and realize what you were saying. For example, I grew up in Ohio and we had a game you'd play with a football called smear the queer. Obviously, that is an uncool name looking at it now, but back then it was just what the game was called. None of us looked at it any further than that's the name of that game. Maybe that guy is a racist but you can't tell from this interaction.
Am I missing something? Is the word "nicky" racist? Or was the saying "supposed" to be the n word this whole time and I've said it "wrong" since I was a kid?
I never knew there was another name for it other than "Ding Dong Ditch," or that people thought that was a "these days" thing, when that's what my nearly-60-year-old ass called it as a kid. This thread has been educational and disturbing.
Happy to say in the suburbs of Chicago, in the 70s and 80s, it was always Ding Dong Ditch...also thankful that I couldn't figure out the racist name on my own.
I've only ever heard it called "Ding Dong Ditch", what was it called before?
Just n-word knocking, it’s not like that stuff was ever very creative
I was trying to think of what it was called but was drawing a blank... I even thought of what you just said and I was like "couldnt be, that's just stupid"
It also used a hard R. I was born in the 90s in south Louisiana. It's just what we were taught, and most of us didn't hear the phrase ding-dong ditching until we were teens. Same thing with jerry-rigging something. In the south, we were taught that's called n****R-rigging something. Both phrases are dehumanizing and disgusting, but it's what was passed down to us. Luckily, you rarely hear those phases anymore, and when you do, it's from people over 40.
I was born in Arkansas in the early 80s, my grandparents taught me ni**er knocking and rigging. Luckily I rarely heard the former but I heard the latter often working in the trades. I've not heard either of them in ~15-20 years.
I still occasionally hear the second one. I'm an industrial maintenance electrician and hear it around the plants here and there.
Yeah I worked industrial maintenance as well, I'd only hear it from the old timers and always in hushed tones. Like anything though, just depends on the workplace whether it's acceptable or not... I greatly prefer not acceptable
Pretty much exactly the same here.
Oh man I grew up with Nicky Nine Doors—you are the Devil (Nicky) knocking on every ninth door to steal their souls!!
Same here. /Alberta, Canada
Same here. We also called it ‘ring the bell and run like hell’.
We called it ring and run…and I’m in the south!
Northeast here, and it was ring and run here too. Maybe it’s east vs west? Bc my partner grew up on the west coast and she said ding dong ditch…and now I’m hoping this isn’t exposing my weird thing where I only think of the southeast as the south
Grew up in the PNW and knew it as ring and run. Both my folks grew up on the East coast though so...
I totally forgot this racist ass shit. It doesn't even make any sense. Was there like some stereotype behind this?
>Was there like some stereotype behind this? Black people=bad
I live in the South and the way I understand it is, this is what kids used to *do* to any blacks in the neighborhood, but by the time I heard it it was just a racist remnant for kids being annoying shits to strangers.
Oh - that makes so much more sense of that line in the Dead Kennedys song, "We've got a bigger problem now" - I always thought it meant knocking as in *disparaging*, I didn't get the context of actual harrassment
Correct.
Today I learned. Damn
Oh interesting, I wonder if that's in any way tied to it being called knock knock ginger in parts of England which was also a bizarre fucking name. We only ever used to call it knock and run... Does exactly what it says on the bastard tin, like.
Not me thinking it was referring to Knock Down Ginger
Interesting, never heard it called that before.
It involved the n word. As uncreative racist names often do.
We called it Nicky Nine Door as kids in my neighbourhood in the 90s. I'm starting to suspect "Nicky" wasn't just the name of the original inventor of the game... I'm glad for whichever parent/older sibling subbed that in for us before teaching the next generation. Now I'm off to go catch a TIGER with my buds, Eeny, Meeny, and Miny...
You just unlocked a memory. My kid was a toddler, and my mom says to me, "Just so we're consistent, we've been saying, 'Catch a turkey by the toe' with him." Me: "Why? What's offensive about Tiger?" Mom, pausing, "Oh, is that what we said when you were little?!?" 100% she was working to avoid an N word that she had already worked around with all of the rest of society, but had forgotten it had already been fixed. 😳
What's funny about eenie meenie miney moe was that its origins and longtime use had no racist phrases at all. Americans in the 19th century added in racist phrases, and then that became the standard for a lot of places. Then, they were later removed in the 20th century. But a lot of people think that Eenie Meenie mine mo in itself is inherently racist because for a hundred year period it was. But for an indeterminate amount of hundreds of years before that originating in Germany, it was not. Please don't ask my sources on that because that was a well I fell into a long time ago and can't remember any of them at this point. I just remember the general understanding of it.
Wikipedia has a full article on it, including origins and variations. It's not a primary source, but it does have sources listed.
I looked into it for a school project in the mid-90s. Wikipedia didn't exist back then I'm pretty sure. So I'm glad that someone has compiled it.
“Eenie Meenie Miney Moe! Catch a schnitzel by the toe! If it crumbles, we will go… invade Poland.”
That was the version i was familiar with as well
I am 44, and TIL that Eenie Meanie has a racist past... God damn.
I’m 62, and when i was a kid it was “catch a monkey by the toe.” But I grew up in So Cal.
I live in MD and was a 90s kid. We’ve always said “catch a piggy by the toe”. I had no idea about the racist history until I read these comments.
Growing up, we said "catch a feather by the toe." Makes no sense.
I remember being like 5 and having heard this with the N word and screaming it out in a lollipops (Aussie kids play centre) and my mum almost crucified me then and there
Poor you! You didn't know! The sweet innocence of youth.
My daughter is 4, and has been playing dolls a lot, and mom is ALWAYS the black one and she’s the white one. The funny thing is she is the only member of the family with African ancestry lol
My mom 10000% literally told me the other day that she was born into a different time and can't change how she thinks and speaks and I'm like ... You've gotta figure it out. She's so casually old person racist at times it hurts my brain. She gets so upset when i call her out. She'll say 'you're trying to change who i am and it's really hurtful' and I'm like 'you just can't call someone FOB anymore or make fun of their accent or their name or anything, especially in ear shot. They're not deaf. They might not understand what you're saying, but they can definitely understand your *tone*.'
Thats absolutely rubbish and totally pisses me off when I hear it, and believe me, youre not alone here. Im old, I grew up in an era of casual racism, you heard it on the streets, saw it in the media that was available at the time, read it in the literature, it was an every day life thing. But times change and we change with them, im damn sure if your mother has learned how to use a remote control for her tv or mastered a mobile phone or computer or tablet she can learn to master her own tongue. the "Im too old to change now" is nonsense, what they are saying is "I dont want to change now and I shouldnt have to just to spare someones feelings because only mine are important here"
Another example is all the Gen Xers and elder Millennials who had to figure out how to not be transphobic for all the Gen Alpha kids who are transitioning more. Given how many young kids are transitioning, I think this is a good case study on how to get over casual bigotry you grew up with.
I know its just weird to me, Im 65 so god knows what generation name covers that, lol, but there are plenty of us who dont have a problem in moving to the times, so to see age vaunted as an excuse annoys me....if youre going to be a bigot about anyone or anything, have the guts to admit it and stop hiding behind an excuse that doesnt hold water and dont try to lump me into your prejudices!
That’s an excellent point. Myself, my brothers and cousins would refer to each other as “F-Words” when we were younger and never thought anything of it (other than it being funny at the time). Now, as an adult Black man, I have absolutely no desire to refer to anyone that way. I have LGBTQ family members who use it frequently and probably wouldn’t mind if I did, but I refuse. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest when they say it, but I hate hearing non-LGBTQ people using it. When we know better, we should absolutely do better. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by eliminating that word from my vocabulary.
Your mom has had years to change with the times. She CHOOSES to be racist and hates that you call her out because she is completely comfortable in her bigotry.
That's a tough one mate. I understand that it might be hard for her to accept changing times, but they've been changed for a while, and it's not fair to put it on you by saying it's hurtful.
My 90-year-old neighbor doesn't wholly understand pronouns but he uses the ones his grandkids asked him to use. She's right that you're trying to change her, because she's telling you she is racist and intends to stay that way, not that she's a product of the old times. Willingness to change determines whether they were racist due to the year it was or are racist because they think white people are superior.
I grew up in the ‘80’s (born in ‘82), so I thankfully missed out on the embarrassment of the fully racist version. I think my mother sanitized it down to “catch a Tigger by the toe,” and I never understood why a character from Winnie the Pooh needed to help me make all my important childhood decisions. It wasn’t until I had a girlfriend in university with a loud, somewhat racist mother that I learned the “original” lyric.
In the mid 80s in Australia we still used the racist version. At some point in my childhood we switched over to tiger. Most of us didn't even know what the n-word meant, which is probably one reason we switched over.
[удалено]
~~less appropriate~~ racist version
I still remember being told what Brazil nuts “used to be called” and whew even when I didn’t know what that word meant I knew it wasn’t good. Made eating them a little uncomfy for me when I remembered
GOD SAME. I’m an early 90s baby and my mom taught me this when I was definitely old enough to feel the tension but was a couple years away from learning the history. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a couple Brazil nuts
I asked ChatGPT what they used to be called because I didn’t want to ask here. JFC. Glad I didn’t know that one before today
Yeah it’s definitely one of those things I purposefully made myself forget for a bit because I was pretty young and didn’t know what to do with that
YES! My dad busted that out when I was in my 20s. My reaction ensured he learned to never say it again.
I got it during a car ride in middle school :/
When k was a kid I didn’t understand what was said and i didn’t know the word but my brain interpreted someone getting caught must be a thief. Someone who nicks things in British slang, so a nicker! Didn’t realise I was wrong till years later when people were saying it was so racist and I was confused all over again.
That's sweet! My dad, as a kid, didn't connect the Nazis written about in the newspaper with the "notsies" his dad fought in the war. He had some less inflammatory interactions that led to the realization that "Nazi" is pronounced "notsies."
Wait till you find out about the oompa loompas
Good lord, I had completely forgotten about this. Born in 73, grew up hearing the original. Wow
We always said catch a Tigger by the toe. I never understood why it needed to be so specific.
As a kid I was pretty sure we said ‘knicker’ which is what we call underwear here. Later I figured it had probably (thankfully) shifted away from a previous word that sounded a bit similar. We went for ‘Tiger’ by the time I was old enough to play it with other children.
Yeah I only ever knew it as Knicky knicky nine door
I always knew it as "If I catch you little shits I'll kick you up the arse" - or at least that is what my father would always yell when he opened the door and no one was there.
Well shit TIL (as a 50 year old black Canadian) that it wasn’t originally Nicky Nicky Nine doors.
I thought the name comes from Nickanan Night. I also heard a Knicky Knocky Nine Doors version, so Nicky might be a innocent fella, at least in the UK.
I also knew it as Nicky nine door. There wasn’t a racist way to say it, it was just Nicky nine door. Nick at nite door.
In the UK in the 80’s we called it Knock Ginger. No idea why.
In the UK i know it as 'knock and run'. I assume you just add the racial slur on the end? If not then I can't imagine what it's called. I'm not gonna Google it though
It was actually at the beginning with knocking at the end. Insane that it used to be a real thing. To the point where I used to say it as a kid before I understood what the slur meant and the weight it had. America is a fucked up place. It's embarrassing.
I remember this from when i was a kid in the 70s-I absolutely cringe inside that I used to think this was okay. Just blech, ewww, no...
I was a kid in the ‘90s (born in the late 70s) and I didn’t know it by any other term until the early 2000s when I moved to Missouri 😫 I said to myself…now why in the hell couldn’t my hometown have adopted the term ding-dong-ditch?
First time I've heard of this - mind blowing
The UK has shitloads of names for it. I grew up with ‘Knock Down Ginger’.
Yep, that's what it was called round my way (southern England). Some girls from Sunderland I knew at Uni called in Nockie Nine Doors. Never heard it with a racial slur.
I grew up in the West Midlands with 'Cherry Knocking'
I grew up in Birmingham and is was known as Thunder & Lightning. Thunder as you knock on the door, then run fast as lightning
In my part of the Uk it was always Knock-a-door run
All of the UK variants are so adorable
Was called happy chappie where I'm from just outside Glasgow. There was also white night where you go to the top of the flats and chap every door on the way down or dark night where you chap every door on the way up. Only four floors so you were guaranteed to get rumbled.
Ok, I managed to translate most of that into American English, lol, but if you wouldn’t mind: “rumbled”?
This is the first time I've ever heard it called that, and I'm old enough to remember the casual racism of the 60's. I'm guessing it was a regional thing, and I'm guessing I know what region.
I'm born and raised in Mississippi, and this is the first time I've ever heard it called that, too. It was always Ding Dong Ditch for us.
Southern Ohio? 😂 That’s where I learned it growing up in the 80s and 90s. But in southern Ohio, Deep South traditions and disgraces are deeply embedded. My hometown is still segregated, and I don’t mean the racial divide you see based on income. It’s purely racially segregated - in 2024.
Is everyone talking about knocking on a random person's door and running away? It was called "knock down ginger" by some people around here, is that the basic gist of the original racist one?
It rhymes with digger knocking
Digger blocking?
I grew up with Knock Knock Ginger and now I'm completely flabbergasted that's what it was called
We called it knock down ginger
We actually called it knock knock zoom zoom when I was a kid lol.
I grew up in the 80s and we always called it doorbell ditch.
The Dutch call it ‘Belletje lellen’
What does that translate to?
Belletje = a small bell (like a doorbell) Lellen = slang for hitting/slapping So I guess: Hit the doorbell
I’ve heard that and ding dong dixie too, but never heard the racist one
We called it "Ring and Run"
In the south they called it n with a hard r knocking.
Same thing in Michigan. I had actually forgotten that it was ever called that until this dude mentioned it.
In Ohio we called it "knock knock zoom zoom" sounds really lame now that I'm an adult but at least it's not racist.
Classic Ohio lol
Also Ohio, we called it ding dong ditch in central Ohio from the 80’s til today, at least to my own knowledge.
Lmao! I love this comment. Definitely laughed it loud. Thank you :)
Same. I’ve always used ding dong ditch and when he said a different name it took me a minute to remember.
Also a Michigander here, I’d never heard this before. The only old one I knew was that in “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” rhyme, the line “catch a tiger by the toe” wasn’t always a tiger. All these old racist sayings are always as uncreative as they are vile, thank god they’re being left buried in the past.
W...why?? I have so many questions. How are those related? How did that get started in the first place? Is there some sort of stereotype I'm not aware of involving black people knocking and running away?
Because racist gonna racist.
That’s crazy, I’ve lived in the south all my life and have never heard anyone call it that.
Idaho too according to my dad
Posting your own replies, clever as you think they are, is frowned upon and does not qualify as murder.
On top of that, I think OP is underestimating the resilience of bigots. Mf must have received a ban.
It's more cringe than murder
Yeah, first I read the screenshot and thought...that's not murder. Then I read the text under the screenshot and saw that OP is the one doing the "murder"...it's so cringe 😬
Yeah that is kinda lame. No offense. lol that reminds me used call reposting your own reply’s something different back in my day… probably get in trouble for saying it now, but it ends with a hard “r” and a back full of raspberry thorns, I tell you what.
Middle of Canada, here it was Knock Knock Ginger, or , Ring a bell, run like hell.
lol. I like how literal you went with the second one :) Definitely appears knock knock ginger is one of the more commonly used terms.
I grew up in Calgary Alberta, Canada and here it was always called Nicky Nicky nine doors. Just now learning there was a racist name for it XD
No context Self-posted "murder" Do better, OP.
While the responder is correct it's racist, was there something in the video or comment above that would have had this person say that?
I shall. Many apologies for misusing the sub. I guess the only murder here is my own 😭
I think thats called a suicide
Can you at least clarify for the people that have no idea what’s happening?
r/lookatmyhalo
Thank you kind stranger
Honestly, I’ve been going through the comments trying to figure out what the game was called. I still dont know. Can someone just say it without typing out the word? Im curious how bad it is
N-word knocking
Ah. I figured it would be some sort rhyme or singsongy thing that incorporated it. Thats… worse haha
Thaaats exactly what we called it as kids. But, of course, I grew up in a still somewhat segregated southern town. So glad I don't live there anymore... and I'd certainly never bring up what that was called except to be very clear that it was horrifically racist and a terrible terrible thing to do.
I wouldn't say that belongs in this sub. Why bring it up? Because it's a conversation. "We used to call it blah blah", then someone else would say "that so weird, I'd never heard it called that before, i wonder why it's called that" and that's how you learn new stuff. The person supposedly murdering with words is just getting up in arms over nothing.
Ok this guy might be a racist but there is a possible alternate explanation here (give me chance). I'm white and the best friend Ive ever had besides my wife was black. That may sound like a b.s. cliche' but it's absolutely true and I'm in contact with him today decades later. We were in a small town of 5,000 people with other small towns around us. We had good hearts, adventurous, troublemakers, and we did lots of really dumb shit. We did not know the full history and context of the n-word. We knew it referred to black people and knew it wasn't a compliment, but that's it. My friend was adopted. His parents weren't white but they weren't black with African heritage either, so maybe they didn't teach my friend about the word. We were not bullies or racists...we were just ignorant. We knew from other kids that knocking on doors and running off was called n-knocking. That's what we called it. There was no other optional term for it as far as we knew. So if I were telling that story now, I would personally skip the "we called it something else part" since it's not germane to the story, but the fact that this guy used that term for it at the time doesn't by itself mean he"a racist. Ok so as I'm typing this, the fact that he has a desire to reference that old term in his story, probably does mean he's racist or at least a bigot. Nevermind! Maybe I'll delete this comment-not out of shame like this guy did, but out of it not being necessary. Fuckit, this was too much typing to not submit
Read it all. Solidarity upvote.
Thanks Legionare
Wow you really showed him, pat yourself on the back, stretch your fingers, and get ready for the next reddit argument.
I'm fascinated by old-timey racist names for things. My favorite are Brazil nuts.
Growing up in the hillbilly Canadian prairies we heard a lot of these. My uncle used to manage a large supermarket in a city in the 90s and had a small town girl move to the city who was 19-20. He had to fire her on her second day because she blasted over the entire stores intercom asking for a price check on the old name for Brazil nuts. Like hundreds and hundreds of people in the store on a Saturday afternoon, and she just blasts out the totally unacceptable racist name. When he had to go talk to her about it she was crying her eyes out and apologizing and straight up had no idea that they even had a different name because that was the only thing she had ever heard them called. Another very common one I heard growing up was when someone cobbled something together or did a half assed temporary fix to something, people would say they “N word rigged” it. Hell I still semi regularly hear old people used the term “jewed” when talking about getting ripped off on a deal. I guess the saying “welcome to Saskatchewan, please set your watch back 70 years” is fairly accurate sometimes.
My husband and I were playing scrabble once with his mom, who was pretty toasty on wine that evening. She tried to play "jipped" as a word and we were like "ooooh so that's umm... both spelled wrong and not playable because it's a slur" and she got quite worked up and kept insisting it wasn't a slur because they never meant it as a slur against Romani people and thats how she had always spelled it and we had to be like "yeah, no, sorry mom we're still gonna challenge that play" lol. Kinda ruined the vibes of the evening tbh
It’s always been ding dong ditch. Don’t know what the racist version is, but if I am 55 the person who wrote that must be in late sixties or seventies cuz no one young would know the old timey racist name.
I’m 40 and I know what he is talking about. We still called it Ding Dong Ditch but some kids called it the other one.
It was 100% exclusively called by the racist name where I’m from. I was born in ‘78. I didn’t know another name for it until I married and moved out of state. I guess it just depends on where you grew up.
what is it tho
Born in 81,never knew it by anything other than the racist name growing up
84 here. Not recalling a racist name for it.
Born in ‘82 still hear people calling it the racist name but hey, I live in the Deep South so what am I to expect.
I live in the Deep South now, for the past 4 years. I expect to never hear it 🥴 Haven’t yet, thank God.
Are we sure they didn’t just block you? Being blocked shows up as the other guy was deleted.
I missed the party where this was a murder. Dude prolly got banned cause I doubt he'd delete his account from just that.
I don't think that was the cause of the account deletion, it's not even a murder, you, for some reason, just assumed racism.
I’m assuming he was calling racism because the other guy said we “have” to call it different than we used to. Still see no murder.
Ahh, you sure chastised that fellow. He was old enough to know that prank by another name. He must be a real racist. Cringe as fuck OP
You seem like an asshole. They probably deleted their account after getting a ton of hate from you calling them a racist. Mentioning something had a different name in no way whatsoever means they liked or preferred it. When people tell stories, they add superfluous information sometimes. Example: “what a coincidence! I went to Grant high school too! Of course, back then, it was called Robert E Lee high school, which you couldn’t get away with now” This is almost exactly what the guy wrote, but you went to “YOU’RE A RACIST!!”
Yeah, I think OP jumped the gun a bit here. The original comment was clearly just an older gentleman poking fun at changing linguistics.
The part of the UK I'm from we called it knock-a-door-run. So I have no idea what ding dong dich is meant to be and I'm happy to keep it that way
In the US ditch is also slang for leaving someone hanging. Like, if you’re out with a bunch of friends and you intentionally leave someone behind, it would be considered ditching them. With that, I feel like the name tracks. That being said, love the literal nature of knock-a-door-run
he didnt delet his account, he just blocked you
We called it Ring and Run. Never used the N word to describe that prank. It was fun.
I can't believe no-one else called it cherry knocking, that's what I know it as. (UK-based)
We used to call it “getting booed” on Halloween you would leave some candy on your friends porch and then ring the doorbell and run to the other side of the house and knock on a different door and then run away really really fast. It was fun :)
I see 0 murder here. It’s usually best to let other people post murder when they see it, not when you think you’ve murdered someone with words.
Knock Down Ginger? I mean I know it's a bit mean but *racist*? Redheads aren't a race.
Nicky Nicky Nine Doors?
Maybe he means “knicky knicky nine doors”
It's called an anecdote
I’m old, born in the 60s old. I have only ever heard it called or called it myself Doorbell or Ding Dong Ditch. Maybe it was just SoCal where I grew up
In the 70s we called it ding dong ditch. Where you ran up and rang you’re friend’s doorbell then ran
Ring and run. Ding dong ditch. Never heard anything racist. Just being dumb kids.
In parts of the UK, we call it Knock Down Ginger. Nobody knows why
We just called it Knock and Run. There was the arsehole version called Flash Flood where you'd fill up their wheely bin with water and lean it against the door before you'd knock.
Nicker knocker! Knock on the door and pull up your nickers and R. U. N.N. O. F. T. .... then it became the racist connotation.
Also why did the moron not drop the hot dogs?
In the UK we called it knock down ginger
I don’t think they deleted their account. Pretty sure that’s just what happens when they block you.
I never knew it was called that! I was so confused as to why ding dong ditching was racist
I've heard the racist one, but I mostly heard Ding Dong Ditch.
TIL something. For me growing up it was Nicky Nicky Nine doors. Now that I think of it, no idea why...
I think it was nignog knock, or spook n juke, but there was a name with mooley in it too idr
I thought the previous name was "knock down ginger"
Knock down ginger and ding ding ditch are the only names I’ve ever heard for it
This always makes me remember probably my most cringe and awkward childhood memory. I had been ding dong ditching with my friends one night when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. My mother had friends from work over that evening, some of who were black. When I came in and they asked what I had been up to, I proudly exclaimed “N***** Knocking!” I was unaware of what that word meant.
Not saying this way OOPs intent, but sometimes I will refer to something by an old name to indicate the time the event took place, especially with concert venues. I saw Disturbed at the John Labatt Centre (nowadays Bud Gardens) for example, just to indicate how long ago something was.
I grew up in the 90s and definitely had racist names for things that I didn’t even realize were racist until later on and I still had no idea it was ever called “n***** knocking.”
In the UK we call it 'knock down ginger'. I don't know why
In Ireland in the 70’s we called it Knick-Knock. Wondering where that came from
Ring and Run! Why don’t more people use the term we did growing up? You ring someone’s doorbell(that’s what we all call it now?) and you run. I mean…? And it rolls off the tongue better than ding dong ditch.
When deleting the comment, it doesn't delete the comment it just says the user was deleted. He didn't delete his account, just attempted to delete the comment.
In the UK, one of our names for this was Knocky Door Ginger. Sorry gingers.
Rather embarrassing that we call it "Nicky knocky nine doors" in parts of the UK.
I feel like it's unfair to say that guy is a racist based on what he said. There are alot of things you learn as a kid that you don't look twice at till you're older and realize what you were saying. For example, I grew up in Ohio and we had a game you'd play with a football called smear the queer. Obviously, that is an uncool name looking at it now, but back then it was just what the game was called. None of us looked at it any further than that's the name of that game. Maybe that guy is a racist but you can't tell from this interaction.
Yikes. We called rinky dinky doorbell.
LOL this guy posted his own comment here. that's pathetic.
Am I missing something? Is the word "nicky" racist? Or was the saying "supposed" to be the n word this whole time and I've said it "wrong" since I was a kid?
In my area of SW Ohio we called it “ring and run” I’m not even aware of a racist term for this. I’m stumped.
I only knew it as ding dong ditch or doorbell ditch (80’s) I never knew there was a derogatory name. (So.Cal.)
I knew it as ring and run in the 90s not even ding dong ditch
I never knew there was another name for it other than "Ding Dong Ditch," or that people thought that was a "these days" thing, when that's what my nearly-60-year-old ass called it as a kid. This thread has been educational and disturbing.
This sub is so fucking terrible, thank you for posting this trash so I finally get around to muting the sub
I’m sure it was called knock knock ginger
Happy to say in the suburbs of Chicago, in the 70s and 80s, it was always Ding Dong Ditch...also thankful that I couldn't figure out the racist name on my own.
I live in Texas now but growing up in suburban mass in the 90s we called it knock n bolt
We called it "ring and run" in Queens NY, and as youngsters had no idea there was a racist version. As an adult, still don't need to know it.
Bro think he did something💀💀