[Borges]

The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.

[Williams]

I learned the rhyme as saying "catch a tiger by the toe" so I was amazed to hear there was a racist version. This is a common child's game in non racist form, and making all references to it a "crime" is ridiculous.

I also find it interesting that black people can lobby for all manner of laws and financial programs based on the horrible racist history and its legacy, but apparently they then are so fragile they can't even hear anything that might remind them of the issue.

[Frank_2001]

“The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.”

Well then, we’ll just have to ban and burn all his books. Does he have any living descendants that we can sue for reparations?/s;)

[Eepsy]

He also used to put swastikas on his books. Erase him from history! /s

http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_swastik.htm

[Publius6961]

I disagree. The history is too fresh. The rhyme still evokes the N-word, and no amount of beer will wash that down.
From another blog this illustrated that some people make it a mission in life to make sure that it remains "too fresh". I refuse to allow them to do so.

The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.
By my reckoning, that would make it at least 72 years ago, and possibly over a hundred years ago. The absurdity of reaching back that far to be offended should be self-evident, and I would question anyone's need to do so.

I refuse to bow to any source which would define my language for me. Defining a crime by personal inference should be grounds for exposure to legal suits for stupidity, and abuse of the legal system.

[hanamizu]

Don’t know if Kipling was the first one to do so, he may have just been repeating the counting rhyme. (Flashman has taught me that the English in the 19th century used the “n-word” much more broadly than we Americans did.

Many years ago I read an article (Encyclopedia Britannica?) about nursery rhymes. The premise was that children circulated them quite independently of adults. As an experiment children were taught a new rhyme and the researchers were amazed at how quickly it spread across England.

More to the point of this rhyme, the article stated that it originated during the days of the underground railroad. If someone caught a runaway slave, one could make some easy money. Have the runaway pay you what he had or turn him in for whatever reward was offered.

The tiger version, of course makes no sense at all; I’d guess ‘tiger’ was substituted in the late ‘50s early ‘60s as people became uncomfortable with the racist connotations of the original rhyme.