Look in the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster’s Second, Mathews’ Dictionary of Americanisms, Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and and Fable – in any etymological reference work – and still you will not find the “counting out” expression eena, meena, mina, mo, or eeny, meeny, miny, mo, as it is perhaps more often said. Yet this is a very familiar phrase in both the United States and Britain, used at one time or another by almost all children and frequently employed by adults. It is used in children’s games to determine who will be “it” among a group of players. The full rhyme, probably dating back to the nineteenth century, was originally the insensitive (at best): “Eena, meena, mina, mo, / Catch a nigger by the toe,/ If he hollers, let him go,/ Eena, meena, mina, mo.” Sometimes the fourth line is “My mother says I should pick this here one,” and, happily, the second line is much more frequently today “Catch a tiger by the toe.” The rhyme is said, of course, with the counter pointing at each player who is last pointed at being “it.” One tradition has it that counting-out rhymes are relics of formulas Druid priests used to choose human sacrifices.