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Here’s a puzzle for you. Just how do school playground catchphrases spread so quickly, and who invents them in the first place. Looking back it seems strange how suddenly everyone at your school would suddenly latch on to the latest fun thing to say. I’m not talking about catchphrases from TV shows either. No, I’m talking about those weird little sayings that pop up seemingly from nowhere, and for me a great example is the “Chinny Reckon” insult.
What a great insult “Chinny Reckon” was. It’s main use was to let somebody know that you frankly didn’t believe whatever it was they had just said. For example:-
Kid 1: My Dad’s just got a new Ferrari.
Kid 2: Chinny Reckon.
It was most important to get the correct pronunciation, as you had to make it sound as sarcastic as possible, and the best way to do this was to split the word “reckon” into it’s two syllables and say them with as much disdain as you could muster.
There was also an accompanying action to add further emphasis to your belief that your school chum was a dirty fat liar. Stroking your chin as though you were thinking about something was the first level of emphasisation, but by exagerating the action you could imply that your friend was a complete idiot and nothing they said could ever possibly be true. The method of exageration was simply to perfrom the same rubbing action, but pretending that your chin stretched out as far as your arm could reach.
Yet more embelishment was possible by the alternate forms of the phrase itself. You could use any one or more of the following in any order you saw fit (and I’ve now included some of the others added in the comments posted by some of you) :-
- • Itch my chin
- • Rub my chin
- • Chin rub
- • Chim chinnery (Bill Macfarlane)
- • Chinny reckoff (thanks Dave the rave)
- • Chinny beard (thanks Steve)
- • Tutankhamun (Dave the rave again)
- • Jackanory (Bill Macfarlane again)
- • Itchy beard (Bill Macfarlane and Markowe)
- • Jimmy Hill
That final one probably explains where the phrase comes from. Jimmy Hill is a UK footballing legend, having been a player, coach, manager, director and chairman of a football club. He is well known for having a particularly large chin, and for not always being the most reliable source of information when questioned – not because he was a liar though, I hasten to add, just that he made the odd predictive mistake!
For extreme lies, the chinny reck-off (reckon, reckoff, see?) was brought into play, and in some cases the Tutankhamun (“tutankah-moooonn”)
I’d forgotten the reck-off one, thanks for jogging the old grey cells on that one. Never come across the Tutankhamun one before, but I can imagine the kids in the playground now… Cheers Dave, nice one!
thanks for this, not sure how I stumbled accross it but what a magnificent bit of playground language, had to use it in an online forum after remembering it, and no-one knew what the hell I was talking about.
Also varied here to “chinny beard” though much less frequently used than the original…
chinny reckon is a classic. Im 42 and still use it on my kids (old habits..) variants of the insult that we used back then included: itchy beard, chim chinnery (ala chitty chitty bang bang) jimmy hill, rory rory tell us a story, jackanory.. Really dragging out the nory bit. Or just rubbing the chin while jutting the jaw. See ya! Just dont get sussed about it.
Thanks for that Bill. I love Chim Chinnery, although I think you probably meant Mary Poppins not Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I can just imagine kids using Rory, Rory tell us a story in the playground, that’s brilliant! Reminds me of an old series called Animal Crackers where a bunch of large monsters from outer space played in a band. I think it was a seventies show…
Sometimes the phrase need not be uttered. Just the stroking of the chin was enough to show disbelief.
If i tried this at home 9 times out of 10 my little brother would grass me up.
Please add “itchy beard”! This was the usual variant in my part of the world (Harlow, Essex).
It’s amazing how every school kid in the country probably knew about this, just with different phrases. The stroking of the chin appears to be a constant though.
[…] things we did as kids in the school playground to annoy each other, but boy were they effective. Â Chinny Reckon is one such thing that I’ve covered before, but the subject of todays post is the highly […]
[…] was to scratch your chin and make references to Jimmy Hill “itchy chin” and “chinny reckon” if somebody was being just a little […]
Oh you can take the Jimmy Hill connection to the bank. It definitely originated from him. I know this because there is still a set of old, fading ‘funny stickers’ stuck on the inside of my old wardrobe at my Mum’s house, and one is a caricature of the Hillster with a comedy chin (even more comedy than said chin naturally proclaims), and at the bottom of the sticker it says in bold, colourful comedy font……yes…you guessed it…..’Chinny Reckon?!’ These stickers were given away in some breakfast cereal or another in the 80’s. I still have a chuckle every time I see his face peering out of my old wardrobe.
Does anyone remember the ‘showing up’ cuss “Shell”….I’m a Mancunian, so I don’t know if it is a local thing or not, but say some kid slipped on his arse in front of you and your boys….everyone would shout “Shell!” at him. I don’t have the foggiest where that one originated. Anyone?
This seems a fairly good case:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081023085307AAWFiue
Check the Wiki link from it which explains the West Country / Germanic origin.
That’s fascinating Rob, many thanks! I recommend following Rob’s link if your interested in this at all!
It was Barra Hee at our school. I’ve no idea where that came from.
There was a teacher at one of my old schools called Mr. Record and he had a big chin so we called him Chinny Reckon. Another one that got used was ‘Brucie!’ as in Bruce Forsyth.
I’ll bet all the kids used to run about going “Good game, good game” as well! 😉
Wow…this bought back some memories of sibling torture…my brother used to pin me down and deliver an alternating Chinny, Slap’ead, Chinny, slap ‘ead combination. With arms pinned by your sides it is not possible to protect the under chin area and the top of the head simultaneously..as you can imagine. This was usually preceded by the “typewriter” fingers drumming into the top of the ribs and a cheery ding! as he smacked me round the ear to start the next line of typing…luv you bruv!
(of course he was always careful not to leave any marks)
Another one that was used at my school was ‘Lalas!’ as in the footballer who played for the USA in the 1994 World Cup and until recently was involved with LA Galaxy. Not because of the big chin, but because of the lengthy ginger beard.
Hate to be a party pooper and ruin the excelleny Jimmy Hill theory but this one seems to have the origin well and truly covered…
# “Chinny reckon” (North Somerset)— I do not believe you in the slightest (from older West Country English ich ne reckon ‘I don’t reckon/calculate’)
Hmm, that does sound rather more likely an origin I have to say. Well discovered!
The Jimmy Hill connection was probably dreamt up in a playground somewhere…
a school near mine had a similar expression, with accompanying action, “hmmm, my goatee hmmm” with a long stroking action, similar to the bad guys in kung fu movies. sadly my school opted for the more usual “chinny” or “itchy chin”
I remember it as “Itchy beard”
There was another thing like this that every school thought was their own thing until you went out into the big wide world and found out that everyone else did it…. calling someone a “Joey” with the tongue pushing out the bottom lip when they did or said something stupid after Joey Deacon, the handicapped guy on Blue Peter. Very un-PC but we were kids and didn’t know any better.
Ah, yes, the Joey Deacon insult. Deep down inside I think most kids knew it was wrong to do it, but that didn’t stop most of us.
this goes way back to 1975 at least, but only version i ever heard (or was aware of until now) was…..as ever with the stroking chin…”.JIMMY reck” (the ‘on’ being optional) and nevr any doubt as to the jimmy hill origin
As pointed out by some earlier commentators on this post, it seems the real origins of this phrase come from the West Country, but I think there’s no doubt that it was Jimmy Hill who helped popularise it across the country!
We had chinny reck-on, itchy beard, but we also had a more popular phrase ‘ye bowl’. it meant the same as chinny reckon and was accompanied by the stroking of imaginary beard. My Junior school in east london seems to be the only place it was used. I have asked countless people of my age give or take a year or so and no-one remembers its use, apart from the 2 or 3 friends I am still in touch with who went to the same school. Any -one remember “vainights” to announce immunity from a repetitive argument or from being “it”?
No, “ye bowl” rings no bells with me e18 geez, and neither does “vainights”. How exactly do you pronounce that? Vain-Nights?
Ya know this phrase actually came from a TV show called the Mary white house experience, from a character called sarcastic ray, played by Rob Newman.
It was really funny, I used to wind my brother up all the time by stroking my chin
and calling him Jimmy Hill.
Jimmy Hill was actually used as an insult because he has a big chin.
It’s certainly true that The Mary Whitehouse Experience used Chinny Reckon for Ray, the man inflicted with a sarcastic tone of voice, but they certainly didn’t invent it. I was at secondary school by the time MWE aired, and I definitely remember using Chinny Reckon at primary school.
Should I feel sorry for your brother Zim, or did he deserve what he got? 😉
We had Rumplestilts-chin
In Bradford we definitely had the variant ‘chinny chinny’
Oddly, during my school years in North Somerset the common one was “Itchy chin”, with the chin being scratched by all fingers or just one depending on social status.
Love this! I still use chinny reckon lol, we also used “beard” said in a silly voice and also pretended to stroke the beard on our chins like it was massivley long. Chinny Chinny, itchy chin also used (Essex)
cracking thread.
our lot used to shout ”i need a shave” whilst holding their fingers to the beard zone. used to get some fairly manic performances, especially if some truly fanciful bullshit had been touted.
I am crying my eyes out with laughter. Myself and hubby (6years age difference) and my 17 yr old are reading this, it is giving us no end of amusement. We are still doing beard, and chin stroking actions, glad we are not the only crazy ones. Thank you for the giiggle. Made my day
I was always surprised to hear that this existed outside of my school! I distinctly remember it evolving from “Chinwag”, which was what we all said to express disbelief. Sort of a misuse of the “telling tall tales” sense of chinwagging, I guess. From there came “Chin!” then “Chinny beard” (and a brief phase of “BLUE beard!”), then “Ooh, my chin feels itchy!” Eventually, we just said “itch”.
This was in the late ’80s in North Yorkshire. It obviously has other origins (not convinced by Jimmy Hill as a starting point, that’s just yet another way to make a chin/beard reference people would recognise), but that’s how we ended up using it at my school, which is a bit peculiar. We arrived at the same point as everyone else by completely different means!
We sometimes said “by the hairs on my chinny chin chin” well stroking the imaginary chin hairs at the same time. I think this variant came from someone writing it underneath a picture of a Nun who had hairy mole on her face, in a humanities textbook. Good times indeed
I realise this is an old thread, but just to back up E18 geez; my dad used to say fainites too, as well as pax. He was from NW London. According to another board:
fain (fen, to forbid) – Chiefly [Brit] School slang, orig. dial.
Used in the expression fains or fain(s) I, fain it, fainit(e)s: see quots. [EA]
1870 N. & Q. 4th Ser. VI. 415/2 ‘Fains’, or ‘Fain it’{em}A term demanding a ‘truce’ during the progress of any game, which is always granted by the opposing party. Ibid. 517/1 A boy who had ‘killed’ another at marbles, that is hit his marble, would call out ‘Fain it’, meaning ‘You mustn’t shoot at me in return’; or if a boy was going to shoot, and some inequality of surface was in his way, which he would have cleared away, his antagonist would prevent him by calling out ‘Fain clears’. Ibid. 517/2 If a prefect wants anything fetched for him and does not say by whom, those who wish to get off going say ‘Fain I’. 1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang, Faints [sic], in vogue among schoolboys to express a wish temporarily to withdraw from participation in the particular sport or game being played. 1891 FARMER Slang, Fains! Fainits! Fain it! 1913 C. MACKENZIE Sinister St. I. I. vii. 103 He could shout ‘fain I’ to be rid of an obligation and ‘bags I’ to secure an advantage. 1927 W. E. COLLINSON Contemp. English 14 The custom of putting oneself out of the game altogether by crossing the fingers and saying pax! or faynights! [feinaits] or both together. 1948 J. BETJEMAN Coll. Poems (1958) 150 ‘I’d rather not.’ ‘Fains I.’ ‘It’s up to you.’ 1960 Guardian 1 July 9/7 The Englishman..could remain absolutely pax and fainites. 1969 I. & P. OPIE Children’s Games i. 18 This rule is so embedded in children’s minds that their immediate response to the proposal of a game is to cry out..‘Me fains first’. Ibid., He must safeguard himself by saying in one gulp, ‘Let’s-play-Tig-fains-I-be-on-it’. [OED online]
(http://wordsmith.org/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=180401)
I went to school in E.17 and lived in E.18 and we also so said Ye Bow /l? With an Itchychin gesture. So maybe an east London variant and I remember vain or ” fey knights” too when crossing fingers………E18 geez must of lived near me.
I’m 53 from Liverpool we used to put our tongues over our bottom teeth …so there would be a lump on your chin …scratch it and say either itchy chin or Edna if someone was lying!
Don’t know why or where it came from..not having the Jimmy Hill thing..?
That’s very interesting Danny. Obviously the “Jimmy Hill” thing was something that got naturally added over the years. Makes me wonder all the more how the original idea came about then…
Is four years old, but have to comment on e18 geez, Gaz 13 and Lougarry…
Yes, yes, yes…Ye Bowl or Yeeee Bowl (with dramatic extended phrase and pantomime chin stoke) was a regular variant on Chinny Reckon, Itchy Beard etc. at certain schools in East London and Essex.
Ye Bowl being a particular favourite of mine for no particular reason…
Years later at a National newspaper where I worked, a colleague – who grew up in Warrington – remembered his own version at school, in which kids would say ‘In Tunisia’ in a lyrical fashion, at the end of someone’s particularly unbelievable story. Which I loved and, annoyingly, can’t get out of my head…
And as for Vain-nights – as Lougarry so rightly points out it was Feignights, or Fainights, which I remember clearly as a way of saying ‘give up’ or ‘enough’.
My Dad used from his childhood the 1940s in Edmonton/Tottenham area. There may/may not be a pre-war London connection.
I look forward to carrying this conversation, in, err, 2019..
See you then…