Chinny reckon...

[Caramellattelady]

I have seen that phrase on MN several times since I started lurking around on here, despite never having heard it in real life. But from context and similarity, I guess it means the same as "itchy chin" which we used to say as kids to mean "yeah, right". I'd be willing to bet the accompanying hand gesture was the same too!

It got me thinking cos I'm a loser about other (possibly regional?) differences in sayings or games. One example I always remember cropping up when we were kids is the hide & seek game known either as 40-40 or 50-50 (obviously the 50-50-ers were just wrong..)

I find this kind of thing fascinating and would therefore like to open the MN floor to other examples....anyone?

Hitler has only got one ball
The other is in the Albert Hall
His mother, the dirty bugger/fucker
Cut it off when he was 4

Mum and dad knew that but it had added a verse by the time I heard it

She threw it in to a conker tree
It landed in the deep blue sea
The fishes, got suspicious
And had scallops and bullocks for tea

my Nanny (as in grandma) was a proper Cockney born in Bow in 1914. she's long gone now, but every so often I recall a bouncing ball rhyme that nobody has EVER heard of:

Charlie Chaplin went to France
to teach the ladies how to dance
1,2,3 o'lairy
my ball's down the dairy
don't forget to give it to Mary
not to Charlie Chaplin

anyone? anyone? Bueller?

What did you call

A) getting a lift on the back of a friend's push-bike

B) The slip on gym shoes used for PE at school?

C) A bread roll?

A) A backy
B) Pumps
C) Roll if it's soft, a cob if it's crusty.

It was Jimmy Hill here.

Anyone remember the Gospel tennis ball rhyme? Matthew Mark Luke and John, next door neighbour carry on? And the tennis ball in a leg of your mum's old tights, stand with your back to the wall and whack it side to side etc?

We used this rhyme with two tennis balls bounced against the wall juggling style, and at the end of the rhyme the next child had to catch the balls off your throw to the wall without dropping, and carry on.

Bouncing two balls against the wall was called, with stunning originality, "two ballie". I remember the favourite two ballie game being a long (if you were good at it) sequence as thus: plainsie, over, upsie, dropsy, stottsie, under leg, round the world. You did each different throw seven times, chanting the name of the stage you were on with each throw, and the final "round" - if you ever got that far - was one throw of each of the seven preceding techniques in quick succession. If you dropped a ball it was the next person's turn and on your next go you went back to the beginning with "plainsie" again. I loved that game and played it for hours by myself in the school holidays while staying at my gran's - she had an end terrace with a lovely big blank end wall and a bit of a side garden; perfect for two ballie!

We did this, or very similar, as well. With an even simpler title: Two Ball!

Also did various skipping games, elastics, hand clapping, etc largely as others have posted.

East Mids/1970s

We had:

Ip Dip Dog Shit, You Stood In it.
LOTS of clapping games that ended in handstands (so pretucked skirts in knickers)
Chinny Reck-on, Chinny Hill, and Chinny Mandela.
I used to love elastics and skipping. Crap at them both, but loved them.

Oh and

A) Backy (though I've heard it called a Takey)
B) pumps
C) it's a muffin. As in, a chip muffin.

1. Saddled
2. plimsolls
3. Bread roll

1.saddler (not saddled!)

We sang 'up or down, up or down, I don't care if the school falls down, no more English, no more French, no more sitting on the old school bench. Teacher teacher I declare, I can see your underwear, is it black or is it white, oh my God, it's dynamite!'. Also played grandmothers doorsteps, what's the time Mr Wolf and sang I'm Shirley Temple the girl with the golden hair.

Backy, pumps, cob. Birmingham in the 70s

Our dip rhyme was:

There was a little monkey
Run across the country
Fell down a dark hole
Split his little arsehole
What colour was the blood?

And:

Croggy
Sannies/ Black mangannies
Bun

North East, 1970s

1. a booster
2. Daps

1. A bap

1. a backie
2. plimsolls
3. a roll

N London

Chinny reckon or Jimmy/Jimmy Hill here (SE 80s/90s) or occasionally Jimmy Reckon to mix it up a bit. All accompanied with the beard stroking gesture, the length of the beard generally indicated how big of a lie you thought was being told.
Even within a fairly local area the names or rules of games varied, so when kids on our street had bossy cousins from the next town visiting much time was lost debating which set of rules we would abide by. If we liked one of their rules better we might adopt it from there on in but always make a show of using the foreign rules to be friendly next time the kids visited .
We played 'Had' , which was tag/ it.
'Lurgy' , the same thing except once tagged you had lurgy and if you were 'on' when playtime ended your classmates/siblings treated you like a leper until the game resumed unless you remembered to wipe the 'lurgy' off at the door on the way in.
Stuck in the mud where you were released by a tap, Scarecrow where you had to crawl through the legs to release.
Pom pom 123 where you had to hide and creep back home undetected by the finder, who could seek people out but had to be standing on the home spot to shout that they'd seen you for you to be out. The more 'advanced' version favoured by the older kids was Manhunt, where instead of calling out the finder employed no-holds-barred moves to prevent the hiders reaching home.

Not rtft but does anyone else remember Wake Up Sleepyhead? Too long winded to explain!

A) croggy
B) pumps
C) a cob (or a roll)

I used to play sevensies against the wall with a tennis ball.
Mum also taught me a song to sing whilst throwing a ball against the wall...

One two three o'lairy
I saw my auntie Mary
Sitting on a bombalairie (?!)
10 o'lairy start again
(And repeat)

We used to play 'what time is it Mr Wolf', 'dusty bluebells', 'the good ship sailed on the alley alley-o', and 'the farmer's in his den'.

French skipping and cats cradle too.

My mum sang a variation on the Charlie Chaplin one upthread:

One, two, three O'Leary
I saw Wallace Beery
Sitting on his bumbaleery
Kissing Charlie Chaplin

Grew up in a country area and it was "Ip dip cow shit" for us!

I also remember playing Two Balls for hours. We used to make up more and more complicated routines for that - Slamsy dropsy etc.

We used the n word with eeny meeny. Makes me cringe now but had no idea what it meant at the time.

Just remembered another one:
Ibble obble black bobble
Ibble obble out
Turn a dirty dish cloth
Inside out.

And to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar:
Georgie Best superstar, walks like a woman and wears a bra.

Boysarethebest - we sang that in north London.
Backie, plimpsols, and a roll.
Ackee 123 - in my street it was called kick the tree (always the same long suffering tree). If you got home (the tree) before whoever was it you 'saved all' who had been caught before you. My favourite childhood game.
Plus sticky toffee / stuck in the mud combo.
Knocking on doors and running away was called knock down ginger.
We also had a lovely milkman called Dave who let us sit in the back of his milk float (not on his knee) and in snow we could hang into the back and slide down the hill.

We also said 'shaaaaaaammmmee' sarcastically a lot, 'suffer' and 'suffer the dread' and I love you... Nigate milk (unigate milk being a brand of milk).

And going back to the OP, we did the Jimmy Hill chin beard thing a lot!

And lots of other games. Loved being a kid and playing out.

Oh yeah I loved sevensies up the wall and hopscotch. And the skipping games. We also used to have crazes and spend a whole summer doing one thing; darts, monopoly or roller skating. I had really shit metal extending skates that you put over your shoe, that my mum bought with Green Shield Stamps (remember them!!!) and my best mate had proper disco skates, but she would let me wear hers sometimes.

One of our rhymes was just an excuse to say "naughty" words, we were very innocent really (Surrey in the mid 80s):

Harry was a watchdog, sitting on the grass,
Along came a bumble-bee and stung him on the
Ask no questions, tell no lies
I saw a Policeman doing up his
Flies are a nuisance
Wasps are worse
This is the end of my silly little verse!

We called the elastics game Chinese Ropes in Co Fermanagh NI. We said England Ireland Scotland Wales, Inside Outside inside Scales! Loved it, was a big craze for ages.

Also had a rhyme called Mary Ann Magee that 2 people joined hands behind their back and skipped along to it.

Mary Ann Magee it's half past three, she knocks at the door and she turns around the key. At that pint you changed directions!

A) Croggy
B) Plimsolls, sometimes pumps
C) Cob

East Mids

We pronounced it "tick" rather than "tig", (west midlands). A popular version was chain tick: one person caught another, they joined hands and together chased and caught someone else and again held hands. Eventually there was a long line of kids wheeling around the playground trying to encircle last catchees.

We also played what seems to have been 'stuck in the mud' but it was not called that, and now I am brain racking trying to remember our name for it.

A) croggie
B) sannies or sanshoes
C) breadcake