Counting Out Words for Approximate Seconds

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jim Markley from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

I’m tickled to be on the show.

Well, hi, Jim, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Welcome to the show.

Glad to talk to you.

Hi, Jim.

Thanks.

What’s up?

Hi.

Well, I have a question about counting time.

When I was a kid, we would play touch football, and the rule was that you couldn’t rush until three seconds had passed.

So we would always say out loud, Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2, Mississippi 3, and then we would rush.

Were we the only ones that ever did that?

Did everyone all over the country do that, every kid?

And do they still do it?

And do they say other things besides Mississippi?

And you would say Mississippi 1, huh?

Instead of putting the number before?

Yeah, we always said Mississippi 1.

How interesting.

I grew up using the word Mississippi, but I would say one Mississippi, two Mississippi.

And I think that the first time I heard it used that way, it was counting the seconds between a flash of lightning and the sound of thunder.

And it was always really.

Did you do it that way, too?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Or maybe playing hide and seek or something like that.

The Mississippi 1 version is a new one on me, but there are lots of different ways in this country to say that.

I know some people just say 1001, 1002.

Interestingly enough, across the pond in Britain, a lot of times people tend to say Piccadilly 1, Piccadilly 2.

And it’s just a delightful rhythmic way, I think, of counting time.

Do the Spaniards say one Barcelona?

I don’t have information on the Spanish, but let’s see.

What do we know?

The French sometimes count crocodiles, and actually they do sometimes say Mississippi.

English speakers, including in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries, also will use—they have a whole menagerie.

They’ll hippopotamus, chimpanzee, crocodile, alligator, elephant.

Elephant’s very common in the U.K.

The Polish use elephants as well.

The Swedes tend to say 1001 or their version of 1001 in Swedish.

1001 is also used in the U.S.

Let’s see.

Yeah, there are lots of different ways to do this.

In German, it’s interesting because they just use the numbers for 21, 22, 23.

Ein und Svansik.

Und Svansik.

And one that I really love, I’ve been told that in the Romani language, which is spoken by about 3 million people, you learn it as something that translates as I am singing.

I’m probably mangling the language there, but this is what I’ve been told, which I think is really lovely.

I am singing.

Oh, Martha.

Yeah, the German one, the 21, 22, 23, the Danish, the Dutch, and Hebrew speakers do the same thing.

The Danish also do crates or cases of beer.

What case of beer?

Two cases of beer.

Yeah.

Sort of the backwards version of…

Three bottles of beer on the wall.

I was going to say, the backwards version of that.

Well, this is great.

I had no idea there were so many versions of it.

A ton of this stuff.

I’m sure there’s so many countries and languages that we haven’t named, and we have so many listeners around the world who speak so many languages.

They’ve got contributions on how to approximately count off the sentences.

We’d love to hear about them.

So, Jim, if we come up with some more, we’ll share them on the show.

That’s great.

Thank you so much.

It’s been a lot of fun.

Our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Hey, thanks for bringing back those memories.

Mm—

Yeah.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

How do you approximately count off the seconds in the languages that you speak?

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