girlyswot

It's as good an explanation for why people think putting their left leg in and then their left leg out is what it's all about as any.

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I have always believed that doing the hokey cokey and turning around is what it's all about, but ymmv.

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I've been doing my deep breathing, and after long and prayerful thought I have decided that I can carry on associating with you despite this deep ideological divide.

Hokey pokey is what they call ice-cream in old books, as far as I'm concerned. I've never encountered the Hokey Tokey, but then I've led a sheltered life.

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Phew.

Wikipedia claims that is what they call the Hokey Cokey in New Zealand. I am waiting for the antipodeans on my flist to confirm or deny this.

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Is it coming out solidly Cokey for UK readers so far and Pokey for US readers so far in your poll, or is it a mix?

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Yes, with the Canadian agreeing with the Americans.

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I don't think I've ever heard it called the Hokey Cokey, always Pokey.

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I had never heard it called Hokey Pokey before today so I googled it and then did the poll. Looks like it's geographically specific.

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That was my inital thought, also. There's a song in the states entitled Do the hokey pokey. It's one of those call-and-response types, mostly played at skating rinks and childrens' parties.

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What else did you think I meant, if not the song?

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*blushes* I thought you were just talking about the dance, in general. My playlist won't work in a comment, I'll have to post it in a blog entry.

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gabrielladusult.livejournal.com

I was shocked to see so many "Hokey Cokey" responses, as I'd never heard anything but Pokey before today (on both coasts of the US -- we can't agree on what to call a soft drink {soda, pop, or 'coke'}, but we all say 'Hokey Pokey' as far as I know).

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I was "shocked" the other way round as I'd never heard hokey pokey until I took Little Tyke to playgroup. Not as shocked as I was to hear "Ring around the rosey" instead of "Ring, a ring of roses".

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Ring around the rosey? That makes so much sense, considering the origins of the song. *rolls eyes*

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Yes, I know. But it seems to be the usual form sung here and I've seen it in a book of rhymes (complete with an icky picture of children going round a rosebush). I think the book was American not Australian.

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That's sad, imo, when a song moves so far away from the original, just because people don't care to listen to what's really being said. Every year I try to get my family to sing the correct lyrics to one of our favourite Christmas songs (written sometime in the 19th century), but they just don't bother. *sigh* Why am I wired this way? I wish I was able to ignore it, but I'm not.

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To add to you distress, most american children (myself included) don't find out the background stories to their nursery rhymes until their late teens or early adulthood. And yes, I was grossed out.

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I don't think most British children do either but that one is used for teaching about the plague so often that that is one we do know. But here in Australia children the history younger children are taught is about the colonisation of Australia, so there's no reason why they should sing the right words, I suppose.

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So what is the origin of this song? (which I never heard about - how do you know it, Berte?)

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We learned it in English lessons in primary school. Quite a few nursery rhymes seem to be based on historic happenings (like the plague). This is about the plague, getting rosey rings is a symptom, posies of herbs were used to protect against the plague or to heal, and the sneezing is the final step before you fall down and die. At least, that's what we were taught, maybe the scholars have changed their minds?

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*shudders* Glad I didn't learn THAT in primary school. I would have had nightmares, and started looking for rosy rings on me and others. Yikes! What a theme to do a nursery rhyme on. I'm beginning to see why the Brits are famous for their "stiff* upper lips. It was probably a literally stiff lip at some point.

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sam-t.livejournal.com

I think they have: at any rate, the most recent things I've seen about it (QI, a book I got for Christmas, and er... other things I've forgotten) point out that there isn't a mention of the rhyme before the early 19th century and that red circles and sneezing are not symptoms of the plague (unlike buboes in the armpit etc.). Not that I've actually looked into it in detail myself, though.

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So much for believing I knew... I learned that it was way older than that, that it originated around the time of the plague, but someone obviously pulled the leg of a whole generation of Norwegian kids. Heh - what a prank... *shakes head*

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I would use soda, pop and coke to refer to different types of soft drink!

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Me too, but in America they are mad. There are places where you can ask for a coke and be given Sprite as if that were an acceptable response.

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Soda and pop being generic I can understand but coke is so obviously and abbreviation of coca cola (in the context of soft drinks anyway), I don't get why it can mean any soft drink (and didn't know it could do before now).

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Not everywhere in the US uses it like that. See this map (http://popvssoda.com:2998/).

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You're right, it depends on where in the US you live. I.E., in New Orleans, where I grew up, Pepsi products aren't available, and I grew up with the expression "What kind of coke do you want?". When I moved further north it became "pop", and my brother, who is our version of a Yankee, has always said "soda".

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And in the areas that are just left white, they don't get to drink fizzy drinks at all - or they do but don't call them anything.

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Or else, no one bothered to poll those areas b/c who cares what the moose in Montana prefer? :-) Of course, there's quite a bit of fancy Arizona in the blank area, but those guys don't drink sodas, they drink wine. Hence, the dots labeled "other."

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I would call it hokey cokey but here in Oz it's hokey pokey. Hokey pokey is also a flavour of ice cream sold by the New Zealand ice cream stalls. It's vanilla with hard little butterscotch balls in it and is quite nice.

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P.S. It's good to see that you are still addressing the important issues of the day, Ros.

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I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, but I voted for Hokey Pokey as I've at least heard it. Not that I've ever been able to understand what it is.

So, after reading the comments - is it a dance or an ice cream flavour?

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Both. But to use it as an ice-cream flavour you have to be either from New Zealand or from the 19th century. And I think it's always Pokey for ice cream. As a dance, it's more complicated...

But you know you don't have to vote if you don't know the answer. You can just click Submit Poll to see everyone else's answers.

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alkari.livejournal.com

They sell hokey pokey ice cream here in Oz and I agree with Bel - it's very nice.

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So they don't put their right leg in and out and shake it all about in Norway because that's what it's all about.

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LOL! Nope. We don't. *grin*

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alkari.livejournal.com

This Antipodean says she has only heard of it as Hokey Pokey.

"Cokey" sounds like a revolting brown liquid that some people drink :p

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brownfach.livejournal.com

I have danced the Hokey Cokey in an aquanatal class (lots of big tummies trying to turn around in water - interesting); I regularly make Hokey Pokey ice-cream according to a recipe I found in Good Housekeeping magazine, whose recipes are always Tried and Tested!

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I imagine it is somewhat more sedate in aquanatal classes.

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abishag.livejournal.com

But Hokey Pokey for ice-cream makes sense because a pokey was what you called the little bag made from a twist of paper in which ice-cream - of whatever flavour - was served from barrows or kiosks before they used wafer biscuits.....(first documented in 1894).

Modern scholars are indeed sceptical about the plague origin for Ring-a-ring-a-roses.

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If it was 'Big black lump in your armpit, we all fall down' I'd be more impressed with it.

Actually, probably so would most small children. :)

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Doesn't stop generations of children having had it used as a "teaching aid" (and no doubt still having it taught to them)) nor the Americans changing the words.

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It's how folklore works.

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