#Oxenfree game is a game of hide and go seek free#
NB: a scar faery notes that in the Black Country, semantic drift has transformed the familiar refrain: "There I was," she writes, "casually looking over the children's games node, when it suddenly hit me that Ali ali oxenfree - or ollie ollie oxen free - was exactly the same as what I knew as "acky acky 1 2 3". However, it seems that they were in common use by the 1920s, and probably earlier, as the expression " home free" is found in print in the 1890s and the game of hide-and-seek is at least 400 years old. The additional "ee" sound and the repetition of "all" contribute to audibility and rhythm.įrom this root, a number of variant folk etymologies come forward, the most common of which has ' oxen' replacing 'out(s)' in, giving 'all-ee all-ee oxen free' with the 'all-ee' reinterpreted as the diminutive nickname ' Ollie'.Īccurately dating the expression is difficult, as it wasn't collected until the 1950s and later. The original form of the phrase is hypothesized to have been 'all in free or all's out come in free', with time and repetition distorting it eventually to 'all-ee all-ee (all) in free' or 'all-ee all-ee out(s) in free'. Shouted by children in the United Kingdom and the United States to signify that a game of hide & seek or similar is over, and that all players can come out of hiding. Those were the fun games where the rules were spouted by the previous games winner in a stream of nearly indecipherable jargon and where all those soon-to-be jocks and pretty boys didn't stand a chance. You played Four Square with fat Sarah and you got used to losing quickly. The Buckley brothers were Dog-eat-dog professionals though scorned and teased for everything else, when they hit the court, people ran from them.
He was a good 6 inches shorter than anyone else and I don't think he ever spoke a word but man could that kid hit a ball. Gabe, the kid that always wore mittens, even in the summer and only played Wallball.
It was those other losers and nerds that you had to watch out for. The fear in their eyes as you barrel down on them with a tattered heavy foam ball ecstasy. I could leave welts on the arms of those Baseball playing wimps on the Dog-eat-dog court without even trying hard. I was a GOD of Dodgeball, at least 3rd best at Dog-eat-dog and don't even talk to me about Wallball I was the screaming messiah of " crackshots" and " jawbreakers". I may well have been a nerd, and you may not have liked me, but you would have been a fool not to have picked me first when playing those sorts of games. Hide-and-go-seek, Dodgeball, Dog-eat-Dog (commonly referred to as Doggydog), kickball, handball, Four Square and of course, Wallball. I'm sorry, but Basketball, Baseball and Football all sucked compared to the real sports. I find it hard to believe that we as adults don't play hide-and-go-seek it was always more fun than any of the other "normal" games. When I was it logical deductive reasoning always led me to the obvious hiding spots.
I generally hid in insane places like the tops of trees and dryers. The loser stands with his head down as the previous loser grins victoriously.īeing small and sly I was not caught often.
Relief washes over you as you meander casually from your hiding spot. Hollered out by children around the universe at the end of a game of Hide-and-go-seek.
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