A Seattle, Washington, listener wants to know why, when marking time, we say “one Mississippi, two Mississippi,” as opposed to other states or rivers. In the United Kingdom, they’re more likely to say hippopotamus. Some people count instead with the word banana, or Nevada, or one thousand one. Also, a mnemonic for spelling the pesky name Mississippi: :M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked-letter-I-humpback-humpback-I.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Counting Time with One Mississippi”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Martha. This is James Callen in Meshugel, Washington.
Hey, James. Welcome to the show.
What’s up? What can we help with?
Thanks. Well, I have a question.
You know how when, or at least when I was a kid, and you didn’t have anything that was like a real timer, but you wanted to know how fast something was, that was, you know, relatively quick, like running or whatever, you’d kind of do the counting, you know, 1001, 1002, or one Mississippi, two Mississippi to estimate the second.
And why is it Mississippi as opposed to any other state or if it’s after the river? I don’t know if there are a lot of other. I mean, obviously that’s the most famous river in the U.S. But when did that start? Why did that start? What is it about Mississippi that made it the default second timing? Because we have plenty of other states that are just as many syllables or longer.
Do we? I’m trying to think here. Mississippi. Colorado. Oh, one Colorado, too. Louisiana is a little longer. One Louisiana, yeah. I wonder if Mississippi is just tied up in all those double letters and it being also difficult to spell, and it seems longer. It might be the same syllables as Colorado, but it’s harder to spell.
I do know someone who grew up saying one Nevada, two Nevada.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, there you go, yeah.
But Mississippi, yeah, it does seem longer. You’re right.
So you hit on some stuff. I think it’s a well-known river. I think it’s hard to spell. It’s got a lot of letters, even though it may be the same number of syllables. And it’s kind of fun to say. Mississippi is a really fun word to say.
It does remind me that there’s that little rhyme or chant or whatever it was with how you spell Mississippi, kind of like you mentioned, like the humpback, humpback, I. Cook a letter, cook a letter, I. I can’t remember how it goes, but there was that little…
Wait. You know this one, Martha?
No, no.
You don’t know this one?
No, I was going to say the way I learned to spell Mississippi was from some old Looney Tunes cartoon that had the bouncing ball. Remember when you had the bouncing ball going to fall? And it went M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. That used to be so hard to spell. It used to make me cry. And so to this day, that’s how I spell Mississippi. M-I-S-S-S-I-P-P-I.
I learned it like James started. It’s in my crooked letter, crooked letter I, humpback, humpback, humpback I.
What?
Oh, wait, humpback, humpback I. Only two humpbacks. I have never, ever heard that. In my crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter, crooked letter I, humpback, humpback I.
Yeah. That is exactly the chant or whatever it was that we used. Here are a couple others for you, by the way. Apparently in the United Kingdom, because they don’t have the Mississippi River, they’re more likely to say hippopotamus. One Tim’s, two Tim’s.
No.
I know some people say banana. And in a variety of other countries, they’ll do, just like we can do in English, they’ll do 1001, but they’ll do it in their own language.
Right, in Scandinavia. In Sweden.
Yeah.
Norway and Sweden.
Right, Iceland, too. And Denmark, I have been told on the highest authority that they say one case of beer, two cases of beer.
So anyway, that’s our best guess for you, and plus a few extra things thrown in.
Cool.
That’s really cool. Do we know how far back that goes? I mean, is it really, really old, or is it one of those things that seems old but turns out to have been 10 years before I was born?
I haven’t found it earlier than the 1900s, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Okay.
I mean, you said something very early.
Yeah, it seems like it could definitely have been. I mean, Mississippi’s obviously been there forever.
Yeah, and you nailed something like widespread timepieces. Like, we’re probably looking at timepieces. The Casio wristwatch is kind of putting a cockpaw on the one Mississippi, right? Those $8 things you got out of the gumball machine at Walmart. That’s kind of put an end to that mostly.
I don’t know. Anyway, thanks for your call, dude.
Thank you so much.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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