The phrase, passed down through generations of children playing games, got morphed and changed into an English approximation involving our guy “Ollie,” whoever that is, and some “oxen.” It became an indelible part of childhood for many in the United States. So where did the phrase come from? It’s thought that it’s related to the phrase “All ye, all ye, all’s set free,” but the origins are probably actually from German: “Alle, alle auch sind frei” (that is, “Everyone, everyone also is free”). The person who is “it” will then call out “Ollie, Ollie, Oxen free” to signal that the game is over and that the players can come out of hiding. The phrase that is usually used as a call to signal the end of a game or activity, and almost always in hildren’s games such as hide and seek, where one person is designated as “it” and the rest of the players hide. But we probably never stopped to ask: who is Ollie? Does he have oxen? And why are we setting them free? Idiomation was unable to located the phrase used in the game of hide-and-seek that was used to call hiders back to “home base” in either Froissart’s era or Pollux’s era.“Ollie, Ollie, Oxen free” is a saying most of us learn when we’re kids. Katie says: Olly, olly oxen free is a phrase used in childrens games generally used to indicate that people who are hiding (in a game of hide and seek, for. We also know that the game of hide-and-seek is nearly identical to the game described by the 2nd-century Greek writer Julius Pollux. What we do know is that French court historian and poet, Jean Froissart (1337 – 1405) wrote of having played hide-and-go-seek in England as well as in France. The Japanese toy company Sanrio funded the production, with the goal of releasing a children's film to complement their toy line. The locales that were used were in Calistoga and St. It may also be a corruption of “ allez, allez” which is a Norman addition to the English language from French and is pronounced “ all-ay, all-ay.” The word “ allez” in French, of course, means “ go.” The ensuing “ in kommen frei” was a phrase popular in Dutch/German New York and Pennsylvania and meant “ come in free.” In this case, “ Allez, allez, in kommon frie” may have morphed into a French-English hybrid: “ Allez, allez, come in free!” Olly Olly Oxen Free was a low-budget film that was filmed in the summer of 1976, on location in the Napa Valley, California. With minimal effort, it easily becomes: ollie, ollie, oxen free. I am of French, Dutch and German heritage mainly and he Irish and Cherokee. As I corrected him on my oxen (auch sind) version, he swore I must have come from Venus. Imagine how it sounds when excited children are running about, shouting this at the top of their lungs and it’s easy to see how it becomes this: aw-luh aw-luh owxin fry. Funny, my husband said the olliein come free version tonight and I thought he was from Mars. When “ a lle, alle auch sind frei” is said in a normal speaking voice, phonetically it sounds somewhat like this: aw-luh aw-luh owhk zint fry. The most likely explanation for the phrase is that it is a corruption of the German “ Alle, alle auch sind frei” which, when translated, means “ Everyone, everyone also is free.” And so, errors in passing the sayings down from generation to generation is not unlike the misheard lyrics of popular songs over the decades. This peculiar expression dates back to the late 18th century in England and was commonly used during hide-and-seek games. That’s because they’ve been passed down orally from one generation to the next, with no adult intervention or correction. The Origin of Ollie Ollie Oxen Free Believe it or not, ollie ollie oxen free is a corruption of the original phrase all ye, all ye ‘outs’ in free. In Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, if a player shoots an enemy and then hides, the player is hunted down with the phrase “ Ollie, ollie, oxen free! Come out, come out wherever you are!”Īside from that, it’s hard to find published references to the phrase “ ollie, ollie, oxen free.”Ĭhildren’s sayings were hardly recorded until the 1950s, and even then, the sayings are very variable. In the video games, Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: First Strike, the phrase “ ollie, ollie, oxen free” is used a number of times to pass along information to other members of the team.
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