Counting Out Loud

July 21, 2009 10:15 PM

What word(s) do non-US English speakers use to count out loud?

Okay, so, in the USA, school kids and many adults keep count out loud by using the word "Mississippi" each second (as in "One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi, etc). I assume this is because the word takes about a second to say. Does a similar tradition exist in other English speaking countries? Since I imagine they don't use the name of a US state / river, what words are used for this purpose?

posted by l33tpolicywonk to Society & Culture (55 answers total)

Well, I'm from the US, but I use "potato".
posted by Netzapper at 10:17 PM on July 21, 2009

(Also, I don't know that I've ever heard it called "counting out loud". I use that phrase to mean simply counting something verbally: "One, two, three, four... I have four bottles." I'd probably call what you're talking about "counting seconds".)
posted by Netzapper at 10:20 PM on July 21, 2009

In Canada we use the metric system, and say "One thousand".
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:20 PM on July 21, 2009

...also "steamboat" when playing Canadian touch football.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:22 PM on July 21, 2009

Just more US data, but I grew up on many variations of "One-Mississippi". One-Mississippi was one of them but we also had, One-potato as Netzapper said. One-alligator was pretty common too. Even in one country there seems to be a lot variation.
posted by fishmasta at 10:31 PM on July 21, 2009

I'm from the US and I never said "Mississippi" but I do say "elephant".
posted by so_gracefully at 10:51 PM on July 21, 2009

I'm from Scotland, and I used "one-hippopotamus" to count seconds.
posted by spockette at 11:06 PM on July 21, 2009

In New Zealand we always used Mississippi, at least where I grew up. It's not something I really do as an adult (maybe because I have a watch?) so I don't know if it's changed.
posted by shelleycat at 11:15 PM on July 21, 2009

As a kid in New York City, we would say 'One-One Thousand, Two-One Thousand....'.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:17 PM on July 21, 2009

If we're talking estimating seconds, I grew up with "One cat-and-dog, two cat-and-dog..."

(Australia, if it matters)
posted by pompomtom at 11:35 PM on July 21, 2009

Australian, I use mississippi, or firecracker.
posted by smoke at 11:39 PM on July 21, 2009

I'm Australian, and I've always said either "elephant" like so_gracefully, or "one-thousand", like Cat Pie Hurts...
posted by Philby at 11:43 PM on July 21, 2009

Australia, WA. Elephant.

Also this: 'One-One Thousand, Two-One Thousand....'
posted by kjs4 at 11:43 PM on July 21, 2009

Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but on an early episode of LOST, one of the characters counted "one sugarplum fairy, two sugarplum fairy..."
posted by Shesthefastest at 11:46 PM on July 21, 2009

in New Zealand, I have heard/used variations of 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand...... Mississippi and 1 dot dot, 2 dot dot,....
posted by scodger at 11:52 PM on July 21, 2009

I also grew up in Australia with "one cat-and-dog, two cat-and-dog".
posted by AnnaRat at 12:12 AM on July 22, 2009

I'm in England and I grew up with 'one chimpanzee, two chimpanzee...,
posted by Laura_J at 12:13 AM on July 22, 2009

In New Zealand we always used Mississippi, at least where I grew up

That's funny, because where I gre up it was always couting by the thousand.
posted by rodgerd at 12:53 AM on July 22, 2009

In Germany it's ein-und-zwanzig, zwei-und-zwanzig, drei-und-zwanzig and so on. It's 21, 22, 23, etc. in words.
posted by starzero at 12:53 AM on July 22, 2009

In Japan we just stretch out the words in a particular way, a kind of chant. One is ichi, two is ni, three is san, four is shi (it's also yon, but not usually used in this chant), five is go, six is roku, seven is shichi or nana (either can be used), eight is hachi, nine is kyu and ten is ju. So when, for example, kids need to count slowly when playing hide and seek or something, they would sing, "I-chi, ni-i, sa-n, shi-i, go-oh, roh-ku, shi-chi, ha-chi, kyu-u, ju!" I have no musical background, but I just asked a cousin of mine who has absolute hearing and she tells me the first syllable is D (re), the second syllable is C (do), so the chant goes, "D-C, D-C, D-C... D!"

Puttering around the internet led me to this page (Japanese, but when you click on the music you can hear the melody counting to twenty, then from twenty to forty) that says that there is a way of counting particular to the kansai area of Japan (this person is from Kobe). I personally have no idea what this person is talking about as I'm from Tokyo and have never heard this chant before, but perhaps somebody who is familar with the kansai area can elaborate on this.
posted by misozaki at 1:29 AM on July 22, 2009

It's funny how wide the range of word lengths are, even in English. One-potato and one-hippopotamus probably don't result in the same size seconds.

To add a data point, I grew up in North Carolina and use the one-thousand method.
posted by scose at 1:53 AM on July 22, 2009

'One-One Thousand, Two-One Thousand....'.

Oh yeah, we do that too (NZ). If I ever have to count something without a watch these days I just use a drawn out 'aaaaand'.
posted by shelleycat at 1:55 AM on July 22, 2009

I grew up in the Midwest US and said "one-thousand" to count seconds.
posted by cooker girl at 2:12 AM on July 22, 2009

In Germany it's ein-und-zwanzig, zwei-und-zwanzig, drei-und-zwanzig and so on. It's 21, 22, 23, etc. in words.

posted by starzero at 9:53 AM on July 22 [+] [!]


In Dutch it's similar (21-23-23): "Een-en-twintig, twee-en-twintig, drie-en-twintig..."
posted by swordfishtrombones at 2:16 AM on July 22, 2009

I've only ever heard people say "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand" or a kind of "one-uh, two-uh, three-uh". Seriously, I've never heard anyone say anything else...

That's in England (Herts and Cambs) areas
posted by twine42 at 2:28 AM on July 22, 2009

I've only ever actually heard people use "and", if anything. London, England here.
posted by lucidium at 2:34 AM on July 22, 2009

I use one-onethousand, two-onethousand, etc.. (Canada), but have also used "One potato, Two potato, Three potato, Four, Five potato, Six potato, Seven potato, More" as a child. If you say that one fairly fast, it counts off about 5 seconds.
posted by reflecked at 2:42 AM on July 22, 2009

New South Welsh Australian and we grew up saying Mississippi or thousand.
posted by taff at 3:06 AM on July 22, 2009

A-----------N----------D
THOU                SAND
EL       E         PHANT
PO        TA          TO
UND       ZWAN       ZIG
CAT       AND        DOG
MI    SSI    SSI     PPI
SU   GAR   PLUM  FAI  RY

posted by rongorongo at 3:07 AM on July 22, 2009

Here in Ireland, the thousand, potato, and Mississippi things are all commonplace; although I've a feeling that everyone started using Mississippi after a US film or TV show.

In any case, some odd kid taught me to use Wonderful as a guide and I remember it being ridiculously accurate. You go "won-derful, two-derful, three-derful" etc; in perfect triplets. I have a memory of friends refusing to believe I was counting from my head and not looking at my stopwatch when they timed me.
posted by stepheno at 3:20 AM on July 22, 2009

Australia: 'One-One Thousand, Two-One Thousand....'
posted by mary8nne at 3:21 AM on July 22, 2009

English-born Australian: elephant and mississippi from childhood, banana from personal intent just to be different.
posted by nonspecialist at 3:34 AM on July 22, 2009

My husband always says "one little second, two little seconds, three little seconds...". I've always used "Mississippi", but I have heard people say "pink elephants", too. We're both from the south of England.
posted by raspberry-ripple at 3:38 AM on July 22, 2009

Grew up in Winnipeg. I heard either "one one-thousand" or "one Manitoba".
posted by wallaby at 4:49 AM on July 22, 2009

I have always said "One one thousand, two one thousand" as others above. Midwest. A few kids said "Mississippi", also.

"One potato" sounds a bit too Grampa Simpson to me. Or maybe a jump-rope thing.
posted by rokusan at 5:15 AM on July 22, 2009

Here in Denmark its "en kasse øl, to kasse øl......", which translates as "1 case of beer, two cases of beer....".

We can't count past 3 for some strange *hick* reason.....
posted by alchemist at 5:17 AM on July 22, 2009

Australia: One-thousand and hippopotamus and elephant and Mississippi.
posted by robcorr at 5:31 AM on July 22, 2009

Not to drail, but did anyone else notice that generally the Kiwis and Australians were the first non-US answers. Then more asian answers, then Europe, then US. How cool is it to see the world wake up on Metafilter.
posted by tayknight at 6:15 AM on July 22, 2009

Pennsylvania: We used one-one-thousand and one-mississippi. I have vivid memories of cheating (at hide-and-seek, or when playing 2-on-2 football, where you had to wait 10 seconds to sack the QB) by saying "one missip, two missip..."
posted by jessenoonan at 6:39 AM on July 22, 2009

I'm a Canadian who uses 'mississippi'. 'One-onethousand' is also commonly heard.
posted by Meagan at 6:50 AM on July 22, 2009

I like how each answer scans differently. Mississippi creates a waltz (3/4 time), while one-thousand sounds like a blues shuffle or "happy-trails"-style country/western feel.
posted by umbú at 7:05 AM on July 22, 2009

Grew up in Kansas City. Dad taught me to count seconds with "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" - but specifically he taught me this as a way to figure the distance of a lightning strike by counting the seconds between seeing the lightning flash and hearing the thunder from it.

(The problem is I can never remember if the formula is one mile away for each second, or one mile for each five seconds. I'm pretty sure it's one of those two options, though.)
posted by dnash at 7:16 AM on July 22, 2009

I like how each answer scans differently. Mississippi creates a waltz (3/4 time)

To add a data point on this, we used to say 'one-mississippi' in a way that brought it into 4/4 time: ONE MISsisSIPP-EE (capitalized syllables are where each quarter-note falls). The waltz version (ONE MISsisSIPee) came out only if you were in a rush and cheating a little bit.
posted by nobody at 7:19 AM on July 22, 2009

I'm from the UK: As a kid I remember using either "elephant" or "thousand".
posted by ob at 7:26 AM on July 22, 2009

We Canadians really had to rush before the metric system, when we said, "One one thousand seven hundred and sixty, two one thousand seven hundred and sixty..."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:28 AM on July 22, 2009

Sorry, I just noticed I misread your question, my sleepy brain read Non-English speaking countries in my defense: it was 7:15 am
posted by starzero at 8:46 AM on July 22, 2009

From US: We always used the "one potato, two potato..." thing for choosing which kid would be "it" in a game, but never for counting seconds.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.

I remember "one Mississippi" being the more casual counting technique, while "one one thousand" was somehow deemed to be more accurate and reserved for more serious situations (like how long you could hold your breath).
posted by orme at 12:34 PM on July 22, 2009

starzero: No worries. I actually found the German (and the Dutch) fascinating.

Thanks, everybody. The answer to this question is actually far more interesting than I thought it was.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 12:38 PM on July 22, 2009

I'm from Tijuana, Mexico, and curiously we always used the form "uno misisipi, dos misisipi" with a very mispronounced Mississippi.
posted by cobain_angel at 12:41 PM on July 22, 2009

We always used the "one potato, two potato..." thing for choosing which kid would be "it" in a game, but never for counting seconds.

Maybe it was a very local thing. We kids used it for things like the "hold" in freeze tag.
posted by reflecked at 12:50 PM on July 22, 2009

From Ireland, and did one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand.

It occurred to me a couple years ago that "one one thousand" is a very different length from "twenty seven one thousand", so I run with "fif-teen-thousand" and "forty-three-thousand" to try and keep the same spacing.
posted by Iteki at 12:51 PM on July 22, 2009

Northern England - 'Mississippi', but we were taught to do that, and only in classes. In the playground we dealt with people counting fast by upping the number. I genuinely can't think of a childhood occasion where we felt the need to use the "One Mississippi' system outwith a teacher-controlled situation. I may just have had a social circle with an unusual concentration of wristwatches!

Ooh, I remember now, we had a clapping rhyme that put 'allera' between the numbers, but that was part of the rhyme and not to do with timekeeping.
posted by Coobeastie at 4:37 PM on July 22, 2009

When I grew up in Sweden, we always just put "ett tusen" ("one thousand") in front and counted that way:
Ett tusen ett, ett tusen två, ett tusen tre, ett tusen fyra, etc.
posted by gemmy at 6:34 PM on July 22, 2009

My (Swiss) French friend tells me they use "un mouton (sheep), deux moutons, trois moutons..." They use the same technique for counting seconds as they do for trying to get to sleep.
posted by rongorongo at 5:02 AM on July 23, 2009

I'm surprised nobody said "Locomotive". That's the way I've always heard seconds counted, and I'm from the US as well.
posted by Vorteks at 6:24 AM on July 28, 2009