A Texas grandmother says she’s long been baffled about the origin of a counting rhyme that she learned from her grandmother. During the game, her grandmother bounced her on her knee, saying, “Malagee Buck, Malagee Buck, how many fingers do I hold up?” The caller learned that the game she loved as a child is incredibly widespread throughout the world in various forms, and dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Malagee Buck”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Beverly from Dallas, Texas.
Well, hello, Beverly. Welcome.
Thank you. What do you have on your mind today, Beverly?
Well, there is something that has bothered me since I was a little girl, and I’m still thinking about it. My grandmother used to have a limerick or a verse that she would say to us as she would play horsey with us as we sat on her ankle, and she’d bob us up and down like we were riding a horse.
And it was, Molly G. Buck, Molly G. Buck, how many fingers do I hold up?
And I don’t know who Molly G. Buck is.
-huh.
Molly G. Buck?
Molly G. Buck?
It’s Molly.
Molly G.
Yes, Molly G. Buck.
-huh.
Go ahead, Beverly.
Well, she came from a farm outside of Joplin, Missouri, and she said she had heard this as a child herself.
Now, she lived during the time when she was very little, probably around four or five.
She lived outside of Joplin, Missouri on a farm.
Kind of interesting because she said that they would hide her when the armies were coming through during the Civil War.
Her parents would hide her out in the field, and the south would come through and steal all their crops, and then the north would come back and burn them out.
So she had a very interesting childhood herself.
Oh, my goodness.
This limerick or verse has always bothered me about who Mala G. Buck was.
I’ve said it with my children and my grandchildren, and so we’ve carried it on to the family, but no one knows.
My two sisters, they don’t know who Mala Dee Buck was, and neither did my mother.
Oh, Beverly, this is marvelous.
I am so delighted to hear this, because do you know there are lots and lots and lots of versions of this rhyme?
Are there really?
Oh, yes.
Tons and tons of it.
Fortunately, we’ve got a pretty good record of this going back at least 100 years and maybe a lot further.
Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
Can you figure out to whom she was referring?
Well, Beverly, I think the key isn’t so much the Molly G.
The common thread in all of these games is the part about how many fingers do I hold up.
And the other words in the rhyme, in other versions of the game, tend to be nonsense words.
Although Buck does tend to appear pretty frequently, right?
Yeah.
U-U-C-K, but not as part of a name, just kind of as a nonsense word of its own.
Right.
Oh, I see.
Right.
That’s what I was going to say is that a huge number of these games have the word buck in them.
But they’ll say things like, mummily buck, mummily buck, how many fingers do I hold up?
Or mingledy, mingledy, clap, clap, clap, how many fingers do I hold up?
Yeah, or buckety buck, buckety buck, how many fingers do I hold up?
It was always so that we could ride on her leg and she could hold our hands and she would go up and down.
That was a big treat.
-huh.
I’m very interested.
And you say this could be older than 100 years?
Oh, yeah.
Well, here’s the thing.
I’ve mentioned them before.
There were two researchers by the name of Iona and Peter Opie, and they were British, and they did great and wonderful work in the language and lore of children.
Iona and Peter Opie, that’s O-P-I-E.
Most libraries will have one or more of their books.
And they record in a book that they published in 1969 an expression in Latin dating to the year 65.
Not 1965, but 65.
My heavens!
It’s surprisingly similar.
And my Latin’s no good, but it’s…
Martha, how can you do that?
Bucca, bucca, quotes, sunt, hic?
Bucca, bucca, quotes, sunt, hic.
Okay, which basically means how many are…
Bucca, bucca, how many are there?
And it has the same rhythm.
Yep, and it talks about children horsing around, and it’s a little different because in this version, somebody climbs on somebody else’s back.
But the parallels there are astonishing, and I could see how the game would change over the centuries.
It’s not 100% sure that they’re connected, but boy, that similarity is really compelling.
Yeah.
Well, it sounds it.
I really appreciate you giving me this knowledge.
I shall call my sister, who is 86, and tell her what you have said.
All right.
Beverly, I’ve got to tell you, it was delightful to talk to you today.
Thank you for calling.
Well, thank you so much.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
We welcome your call about old sayings, expressions, rhymes, things you learned as a kid, and things you’ve always wanted to know.
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