Wendy wrote about a cool Scottish rhyme.  It’s a type of rhyme called a counting-out rhyme.  Counting-out rhymes are used to choose in games… generally you count-out players who leave the game.  Whoever’s left at the end is "It".  Here’s what Wendy wrote:

My grandfather was from Scotland and taught my brother and I this counting verse over 60 years ago.  The spelling is wrong I am sure but I am sending it as it was said…

A zeentee teentee heathery beathery bambleery over dover zan tan toosh!  A oner a twoer a tickedy seven halibucrackit ten eleven. Pin pan Muskee Dan.  Toodle um toodle um 21.

Wendy

I love that rhyme Wendy!  Here’s another rhyme with "zeenty teenty" from the book "Golspie: Contributions to its Folklore" (from 1897) by Edward W.B. Nicholson.  Golspie is a town in Scotland.  Nicholson obtained the rhyme from a person called A.C.:

Zeenty, teenty, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen,

Sometimes nine, sometimes ten
–Zeenty, teenty, my black hen.

She [A.C.] pronounces ‘ zinty, tinty ‘ and says the first word is sometimes pronounced ‘ sinty.’

"Zeenty teenty" is sometimes actually written as "scinty tinty".  Here’s what Nicholson says about the term:

…the ‘Scinty tinty’ of the Golspie version means ‘One, two’ – these doubtless being the number of eggs laid.

Here’s a "scinty tinty" rhyme from Nicholson with some commentary he wrote about it:

Scinty tinty heathery beathery bank fore littery over dover dicky dell lamb nell san tan toosh.

This is one of a very large number of rimes which are founded on the names of the numbers 1 to 20 in Welsh, probably the extinct Welsh of the old kingdom of Strathclyde. These numbers are in some cases still easily distinguishable: for instance in the above rime ‘beathery’ = the modern Welsh ‘phedair a’ = ‘4 and,’ while ‘dicky’ = the modern Welsh ‘deg’=’10.’

If anyone would like to explain anything else about the meaning of these rhymes or share other rhymes like them, feel free to comment below.

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa