And at an age before awareness, prejudice can slide into a receptive mind, finding a home for life before any critical resistance is developed. What's particularly nefarious about the "eeny, meeny" scenario is that, typically, it's a childhood thing. Multiple alternatives, all perfectly effective for selecting an "it". Today, it's a "tiddler" or a "tiger" you're catching and it might "holler" or "wiggle". Should he ignore what he heard or should he interrupt the game to gently bring his mother-in-law into the 21st century, to have her know that these days, for this particular rhyme, there's strong discouragement against the use of "nigger". Some adults, including me, still use a shorthand version, albeit sub voce, when they're ostensibly making a choice and can't decide: mud cake or pavlova? Being so traditional, the words of the ditty reflect its own zeitgeist, which, at least in this one regard, is stridently at odds with ours. This children's rhyme, of disputed origin, has been known for about 150 years and is typically used in games when a person is needed to be selected as "it". From a few metres away, where he was engaged in something else, he overheard her saying: "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by the toe, when he squeals let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe." He'd taken his young family with him and the children were playing with their doting grandmother. A friend was over at his mother-in-law's at the weekend.