Talk:Hide-and-seek

Phrases for "... in free"

I grew up in an ultra-conservative farming community, with long lasting traditional values and even in the 1970s, a "quaint" form of English.

The call made by children I grew up with, definitely sounded like "All ye, all ye, oxen free!". If hide and go seek is a form of a shepherd's game (incidently, shep-herd being sheep herd, or a sheep herder), it is not hard to envision a game ending where a oxen gets "free" (home being free.. and since a oxen "won" and managed to achieve freedom, the game is over). As for ox singular, and oxen plural, I do not find it hard to conceive of oxen being taken as singular and plural much as sheep or moose is, expecially with some of the coloquial variants of English that could be found before television/radio.

Anyhow, my point is that "oxen free" survived, for all children know what an oxen is (in farming communities), but not what "All ye" is... as this form of English has expired. Since children taught children this game, not adults, I can see the phrase slowly becoming warped.. after all, there is a complete turn over of children every 5-10 years in this game. Ollie = All ye.

Interesting interpretation, above. I grew up in Southern California and played the game in the early 60's. I have also wondered about the origin of calling, "Ollie Ollie Auction Free, Free, Free" at the end of the game when the person who was "it" gave up trying to find the well hidden players. This was the signal for those hidden to emerge from hiding, and they were free from being caught. My personal feeling was that it sounded like German, "Alle, Alle, Auchtung: Frei, Frei, Frei", which loosely translated, would be "Everyone, attention: you are free to come out of hiding". Could this have been what the Allies called to German citizens who were in hiding at the close of World War II? I have no references... only imagination. Whatever it was we were saying had to be warped from something. Bolt51 17:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Bolt51

As a child we call "Olle Olee Ocean Free". I later learned from the "Peanuts" comic strip by Charles Shulz that the call was "All Ye, All Ye, Outs in Free". Considering its usage, the seems the most logical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Engineer-teacher (talk • contribs) 02:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I could swear 'ollie ollie income-free' was a pun, making fun of bankruptcy/unemployment.

Dangers

A reader would not seriously expect to read about fatal incidents while playing Hide and Seek as it is not an extreme sport, anybody can be killed doing anything, hide and seek is about one of the safe activities around. Maybe a news link about an unusual incident could go under a Trivia subheading, but even that would be pushing the boundaries of useless crap/bullshit. Grumpyyoungman01 05:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The article does not indicate an age level for this game, but it might well overlap the age at which young children hide in asphyxiation-risk interiors (e.g. unused refrigerator, plastic bag) leading to fatalities. Perhaps most of those incidents are in simple "hiding" activities and not necessarily in the course of this multiplayer game. Otherwise, there are suitable content-driven alternatives to a Trivia section heading.-- Deborahjay (talk) 03:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Merging?

Cocky Olly, barring the name and cry, sounds extremely akin to the form of hide-and-seek I played when I was very young. Forty-forty also sounds like a hide-and-go-seek game. It seems to me that they should be merged with this hide-and-seek article, but that's up to you. I also remember that growing up, we distinguished between hide-and-go-seek and hide-and-go-seek tag. That was literally what we called them. This was about a decade ago. (Now no kids I meet even realise there was such a thing as a no-tag hide-and-seek). Should there be a mention of this distinction? Hey, is "A, B, C, base on me!" mentioned anywhere?

Counting for "Ghost in the Graveyard"

Growing up, when we played "ghost in the graveyard", there was a specific rhyme for counting to give the hider(s) enough time. Did anyone else say this, or is it just a regional variant?

One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock (two pounds or stomps) Four o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock rock (pound pound) Seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock rock (pound pound) Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, midnight!

sometimes, we would say it twice, and the first "twelve o'clock" position would be "lunchtime!", and the second one would be "midnight"

if others are familiar with this, I could add it in (especially since there is the mention of "one-Mississippi")

House Hide and Seek

"For safety reasons, this variant (often known as House Hide and Seek) is rarely attempted indoors" - what safety reasons, and why would this preclude it from being attempted indoors? --McGeddon (talk) 15:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)