Stuff by Cher: Ollie ollie oxen free

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Ollie ollie oxen free

Ollie ollie oxen freeeeeeee . . .

You remember don’t you? Playing Hide and Seek as a little kid . . . there was always one kid who was the bestest hider. Maybe it was you - maybe it was your best friend - maybe it was the other kid. Whatever. There came a point in the game where the seeker had to give up the ghost and sound the all’s clear . . . ollie ollie oxen free . . . meaning that anyone still hiding could reenter the fray without fear of being tagged.

Yes, this blog post was inspired by an Ihasahotdog dog . . . what of it?

The big question is . . . who is Ollie and why did he set the oxen free? Don't be silly. There was no Ollie and there were certainly no oxen. What's the matter with you?? Sheesh.

Hide and seek is a centuries old game . . . many, many centuries. The all clear signal has been sounded over these multitudes of years and morphed from something like all ye out come in free or something like that. You know how kids are . . . in one ear and out the other and you know their going to mess up the translation. It happens.

Ollie . . . all ye . . . allye . . . ollie. That makes a certain amount of sense.

Oxen . . . oxen . . . uhm, that one is not so easy . . . how about outs in free -or- all come free.

All ye, all ye outs in freeeeeee.

-or-

All ye, all ye, all come freeeeeee.

They both work for me.

-OR-

How about this . . . alle, alle, alle sind frei.

Das ist deutschen . . . er . . . I mean, that is be German. Sorry, I got caught up in the moment. Anyhoo . . . Alle, alle, alle sind frei literally translates to all, all, all are free.

I think all are plausible. You, my friend, are free to glean from this what you will.