Barley/Bali

I just looked at Vinny's article. We used to play British Bulldog too. Was it called like that in the States or only in Canada?

We also said "dibs" -- never heard of "shotgun" in that context.

I've never heard of "British Bulldog" & certainly never played or saw anyone playing anything resembling it. (grew up in California)

We played "Red Rover," but it was nothing like what is described as a variant of Bulldog. We played this Red Rover<blockquote>Quote
<hr>Players on a team hold hands, forming a "chain". The leader of a team will call a player from the opposing team. That player must try and break through two players' hands (a link) to stay on their own team. If the player is not able to break through the link, that team will gain control of that player. Before a player would try to break the link, the link would normally say "Red Rover, red Rover, _______ (player's name) come on over!"<hr></blockquote>Our chant was "Red Rover, Red Rover, let (player's name) come over!"

We said "dibs" or "dubs" to claim the right to something. "Shotgun" only applied to the front passenger seat of a car.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>We used to play British Bulldog too. Was it called like that in the States or only in Canada?<hr></blockquote>
We played that too (in London - England, not Ontario).

Our Red Rover was the breaking the chain version but we used to say, 'Red Rover, Red Rover, send X right over!' - almost the same.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>"Shotgun" only applied to the front passenger seat of a car.<hr></blockquote>
And riding in the middle in the back (sitting with your feet on the little hump) was called 'riding bitch', for some reason.

And, getting all the way back to the OP, I just found a citation that the Opies thought that "barley" was a form of "parley." Another source says "It first appears in English in the fourteenth century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" Others disagree that "barlay" in that poem is related to "barley." See note #296 here

John Jameson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879. <blockquote>Quote
<hr>BARLEY, ». A term used in the games of children, when a truce is demanded .
I have been sometimes inclined to think that this exclamation might originally have a reference to Burlaw, byrlaw q.v. Germ. bauerlag, as if the person claimed the benefit of the laws known by this designation. But perhaps it is more natural to view the word as originating from Fr. Parlez whence E. parley<hr></blockquote>Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.<blockquote>Quote
<hr>To cry barley. To ask for truce (in children’s games). Query, a corruption of parley.
Sir W. Scott: Waverley, xiii.
“A proper lad o’ his quarters, that will not cry barley in a brulzie.”—<hr></blockquote>Others disagree.

Getting even farther off, but I can't resist it--apparently a number of people enjoyed a childhood song with a chorus along the lines of "inky binky barley boo." If you don't get it, look here

Byrlaw courts (rendered in Latin as plebiscitum) were found in Scotland and parts of northern England, including southern Cumbria. The name (and its variants, such as 'birlie', 'burlaw', 'bireley' and 'barley') derived from the Old Norse byjar-log ('law community' or 'law district'), suggesting that byrlaw courts originated in assemblies of the local community. The remit of byrlaw courts in Scotland was spelt out by the sixteenth-century lawyer Sir John Skene, who wrote that 'laws of "Burlaw" are made and determined by consent of neighbours, elected and chosen by common consent, in the courts called the Byrlaw courts, in which cognition is taken of complaints betwixt neighbour and neighbour.' Their function was therefore very close to that of manorial courts and, in Cumbria, byrlaw courts appear to have been subsumed into courts baron. The name was preserved in the seigniory of Millom, where the local manor courts were termed 'court baron and bierley.'

Thanks guys, it now makes more sense and it seems like barley originated from a truce term. My niece calls it tiggy, but when I was her age we used the word "chasie" a lot more than "tiggy".

we used (still use, actually) 'bags', 'bagsed', and 'bags not'. as in, 'i bags the front seat' or 'bags not washing up' or 'that's my seat! i bagsed it!'

we also used to use 'pax' interchangeably with 'bags not'. as in 'who will help me wash up?' then everyone yells 'pax!'. the last person to yell pax is the one who has to help with the washing up.

In Sydney in the 50's we played "chasings" and the safe place was "bar".