Comments on: One, Two, Three, Alairy…

By: William Hastings

William Hastings — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:18:15 +0000

In Canada in the 1930s girls used to sing One two three Alaura; four five six Alaura; seven eight nine Alaura; ten Alaura Secord.
As you will note from the following, Alaura makes much more sense than Alery.
Laura Secord was a heroine of the war of 1812.
Laura was born in Massachusetts in 1775, and moved, with her family, to Upper Canada (now known as Ontario) in 1795. Apparently, her family was at odds with the newly established US government. The next year she married James Secord, and they moved to Queenston, Upper Canada. When the Americans invaded in 1812, James was wounded, and the Americans billoted themselves in the Secord house. In 1813, when Laura learned of a planned American attack on a Canadian post, she walked 20 miles to warn the Canadian garrison. The Americans were defaeted in the ensueing battle at Beaver Creek, and almost all of them were captured.
This implies that the rhyme may have started in Canada, then migrated to the U.S., and England.

By: Nora Mitchell

Nora Mitchell — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:05:59 +0000

Anatoly Liberman’s very interesting suggested derivation receives some support from the version that we used to play in 1940s Jamaica, but which I have never heard anywhere else in quite this form. Instead of “O’leary” we used to say “Levay” (ending “one postman”). I have often wondered since if the word was French (influence from Haiti?); if the essential feature of the bouncing ball game is the swinging of the leg over the ball it seems to me that it could be, with “Levay” being originally “levez” (i.e. raise your leg). Perhaps a Francophone reader could shed some light on this. Of course as practiced in playgrounds the game had much more to it than swinging the leg over the ball. We used to play it as a ball bouncing group game. The order of difficulty was (more or less): (1) Straight bouncing, patting the ball on the syllable “vay” (2) The same, but with crossed feet [Interesting in the light of the Piers Plowman explanations] (3) With uncrossed feet but clapping instead of bouncing on “levay” (4) Making a circle with the thumbs and index fingers and making the ball pass through it on “levay” (5) The same, but doing it twice, saying “levay-levay” — some game-leaders used to continue with levay-levay-levay; (6) Spinning round during “levay” (7) swinging the right leg over on “levay” (8) Swinging the left leg over on “levay” (9) Swinging both legs over, which only the most agile could do. By that time the bell ending the school break generally rang.

By: Carol Kardos

Carol Kardos — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:48:31 +0000

As a child in Cincinnati in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, my recall of the o’leary chant is “… ten o’leary, post man” with the right leg swung over the bouncing ball on the word o’leary. No idea where “post man” came from. We did not play in groups – it was a way of playing when alone.

By: Laura Chejlava

Laura Chejlava — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:06:08 +0000

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, we competed against other playgrounds in “O’Leary” I recall there were 20 + exercises. After learning the exercises we then had to learn/compete doing them within a small circle painted on the floor.

By: Pat Eldred

Pat Eldred — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:13:39 +0000

I was delighted to find this explanation of the game and comments on the derivation of what I thought was the word “O’Larry.” I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1940s but could find no one (even in my age category)who recalled the game or the refrain.

By: Maureen Nicholls

Maureen Nicholls — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:02:20 +0000

My Mother (born 1910) lived in the East End of London and she used to sing “One, two, three Aleary, My ball’s down the area, Don’t forget to give it to Mary, Early in the morning.” An ‘area’ was the space in front of a basement, usually with stairs down to the servants entry.

By: Judith Neaman

Judith Neaman — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:53:33 +0000

I grew up in upper New York state and, more than sixty years ago, oleary was the ball-bouncing and sometimes skip rope jumping refrain then.