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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!
March 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
For extreme lies, the chinny reck-off (reckon, reckoff, see?) was brought into play, and in some cases the Tutankhamun (”tutankah-moooonn”)
March 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
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!
September 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
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…
October 14th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
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.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am
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…
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:32 am
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.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Please add “itchy beard”! This was the usual variant in my part of the world (Harlow, Essex).
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 am
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.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
[...] things we did as kids in the school playground to annoy each other, but boy were they effective. Chinny Reckon is one such thing that I’ve covered before, but the subject of todays post is the highly [...]
January 7th, 2009 at 3:16 am
[...] was to scratch your chin and make references to Jimmy Hill “itchy chin” and “chinny reckon” if somebody was being just a little [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 1:28 am
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?
September 18th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
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.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
That’s fascinating Rob, many thanks! I recommend following Rob’s link if your interested in this at all!
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
It was Barra Hee at our school. I’ve no idea where that came from.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:53 am
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.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I’ll bet all the kids used to run about going “Good game, good game” as well!
November 20th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
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)
December 4th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
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.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:36 am
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’)
July 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am
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…
July 7th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
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”
July 8th, 2010 at 11:23 am
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.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
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.
September 10th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
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
September 11th, 2010 at 9:37 am
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!
April 14th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
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”?
April 14th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
No, “ye bowl” rings no bells with me e18 geez, and neither does “vainights”. How exactly do you pronounce that? Vain-Nights?
May 12th, 2011 at 11:56 am
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.
May 12th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
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?
October 4th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
We had Rumplestilts-chin
January 18th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
In Bradford we definitely had the variant ‘chinny chinny’