Kylie Ryan, an elementary-school teacher in Seattle, Washington, remembers that when she played hide-and-seek as a child, the call for everyone to come in was alle alle oxen free. Are there other versions? Yes, and because these sayings were not codified and instead passed from child to child, there are a multitude of versions. The Dictionary of American Regional English lists at least 30, including alle alle outs in free, allsie allsie in free, allee allee oops in free, allie allie opes in free, and all-ee all-ee olson free. In Shakespeare’s time, the same game was called all hid. Listen for all that, plus the big “Hello!” from Ms. Ryan’s class. We’ve also talked about this children’s expression in 2014 and even earlier in 2008. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “All Out Are In Free!”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Kylie calling from Seattle, Washington.
Hello, Kylie. Welcome to the show.
Well, I am an elementary school teacher here in Seattle, Washington. Sorry if you can hear kids in the background. Part of the job.
Yeah. And we actually had a question. I actually grew up in a small town in California. And whenever we were playing hide and seek as a kid, and the last kid was still hidden, we had a saying for saying like, come on out, you have one hide and seek. And we would always yell, Ollie ollie oxen free. And I remember being a kid and feeling like I didn’t really understand what they were saying, or what it meant. But this is kind of our saying. And then recently, I was out at recess with my students. And I heard one of them say, ollie ollie oxen free. And I was like, whoa, that’s so interesting. I should call both of you and see if you knew where that came from or kind of the origin of the saying.
Yeah, you have any ideas about that? Are you picturing the cows coming home?
Exactly. We always talked about how maybe the oxen are kind of running across the field. We weren’t sure.
Yeah, well, there are lots of different versions of this. And of course, children have played this game forever, probably all throughout history. We know for sure that kids played it in Shakespeare’s time. As a teacher, you’ll appreciate the fact that back in Shakespeare’s time, hide-and-go-seek was called All Hid, and in fact, in Love’s Labor’s Lost, one of the characters says, All Hid, All Hid in Old Infants Play, and over time, it became known as Hide-and-Seek.
To make a long story short, the expression, Olly Olly Oxenfree, that you were using is commonly used in California, but it’s a variant of another expression, Ollie ollie outs in free. That means everybody who’s in hiding can come out now. They can all, you know, come in, ollie ollie outs in free. And of course, this kind of thing is passed along, you know, from child to child, transmitted orally. So it’s not something that was written down and codified. So sort of like a game of telephone, you get different versions of that.
So gosh, there’s so many different versions of this. There’s your version. There’s allsy, allsy oxen free or olly olly oops in free or olly olly oops in free, olly olly oats in free. So there are lots of different versions of this.
Yeah, I think the Dictionary of American Regional English has more than 30 versions of it.
Oh my gosh, that’s fascinating. My kids are going to love this. My favorite is it must be used in the Scandinavian settled parts of the country, which is only Olsen free. And your version fits very closely with what we see in the dictionary in terms of California. So it’s interesting that it’s up in Washington as well.
So that’s what your kids use?
Yeah.
And it was funny because we had a conversation about that I was going to call both of you up. And another, I don’t say that. I say, olly olly, income free.
Yeah, everyone’s got their own thing.
But that’s the nature of this kind of folklore, this kind of stuff that gets transmitted across the generations. It’s malleable, it’s changeable, and I love it. That’s the beautiful thing about language.
Well, Kylie, I’m so glad that you’re talking about this sort of stuff with your students and they’re getting that excitement as well. You sound like somebody who can transmit this kind of excitement to your kids, and maybe they’ll keep it and grow up with it and transmit it themselves.
Oh, I hope so.
Would you mind if they said hello before we say goodbye today?
Oh, no, not at all.
We’d love it.
We’d love it.
Okay, great. They’re so excited to meet all of you. So, folks, do you want to say hello?
Yes.
Okay, say hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Thank you both so much.
Our pleasure.
All right. Congratulations on your being an educator. You’re doing the hard work, and we appreciate it.
Thank you.
We listen to you every week, so thanks so much.
All right.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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