“Insidious Ruse” Refers to Self-Incriminating Repeat-After-Me Word Games

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Melinda Benzel. I’m calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hey, Melinda, welcome.

What’s up?

I have a little word game that my grandmother used to play with me, and I haven’t really met anybody else who has played this game with their kids or anything.

So here’s how the game goes.

So I’m going to say, I’m a brass lock, and you guys are going to say, I’m a brass key after that, okay?

Okay.

So I say, I’m a brass lock.

I’m a brass key.

I’m a silver lock.

I’m a silver key.

I’m a gold lock.

I’m a gold lock.

I’m a gold key.

Oh, gold key.

I’m a monk lock.

I’m not a monkey.

Tricky, tricky.

So that’s just, that’s one of the word games she used to play with me. And I know I Googled it a while back and I couldn’t find anything about it. So I’m wondering if you guys had heard of it.

As a matter of fact, we have. This shows up in collections of folklore going back at least to the 1880s. You’ll find it in collections of games that kids play or tricks that kids play on each other.

And it’s a particular kind of, it’s not quite a riddle, but it’s where you get the victim to kind of incriminate themselves or to say the bad thing about themselves. And there’s a whole slew of these.

So what they are, they’re usually a little circular where you get somebody to say a thing that they didn’t expect to say. So you kind of get them in a habit.

So Pete and repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat. Repeat. And then I say the whole thing again, and you’re like, oh, don’t stop doing it.

Another one that I learned is what color is a red stoplight? Red. Red. What color is a green stoplight? Green. What do you put in a toaster? Oh. Most people say toast. Oh. There are better versions of that than what I could remember.

But there’s a ton of these where you get somebody to say the unexpected. And I think there is a, Martha, you had a term for this.

Yeah, insidious ruse.

Ooh, insidious ruse.

Ooh, I like that.

Yeah, folklore is kind of like that. I have another one.

Oh, yes, hear it. Bring it.

Now, you have to repeat this. It’s a very ancient saying. So just repeat after me.

Okay.

You say, owa.

Owa.

Tagu.

Tagu.

Siam.

Siam.

And then you say it a little faster.

Oatagoo Siam.

Oatagoo Siam.

Oatagoo Siam.

That’s beautiful.

And you’re supposed to like bow at the end. It’s a magical old saying.

That’s very good. There’s a ton of these. We’ll have to share some more on the website.

So your version where you tried to say that we were monkeys goes back at least to the 1880s, and it’s probably older than that.

Here, I’ve got another one for you. You know, they did a survey, and they found out what smart people eat for breakfast. Do you know what it was?

What?

I didn’t think you would know.

That’s good.

Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of these.

Melinda, why do I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more of these in our email?

I think we will, and we’ll share them all.

Yeah, you’re going to have a flood of them, I’m sure.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for your call. This is real fun.

Oh, yeah.

Thanks for talking to me.

All right.

Call us again sometime, all right?

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Thanks.

We will put these little games that you can trick your friends and your kids with and your parents with on our website. And if you’ve got some more, send them along to words@waywordradio.org or try them out on Twitter @wayword.