"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", which can be spelled a number of ways ('Eenie, meenie, miney, moe', 'Eany, meany, miney, mo' and so on.), is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person to be "it" for games (such as tag) and similar purposes such as counting out a child who has to be excluded from a group of children as part of a playground game.
The first record of a similar rhyme is from about 1815, when children in the United States city of New York are said to have repeated the rhyme:
Hana, man, mona, mike;
Barcelona, bona, strike;
Hare, ware, frown, vanac;
Harrico, warico, we wo, wac.
The "Hana, man" was found by Henry Bolton in the US, Ireland and Scotland in the 1880s but was unknown in England until later in the century. Bolton also found a similar rhyme in German:
Ene, tene, mone, mei,
Pastor, lone, bone, strei,
Ene, fune, herke, berke,
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