That’s the most European phrase i have heard so far
Ah yes the beautiful language called European.
Wikipedia says it’s Canadian 🤷🏻♂️
Canadian here, we call it ding-dong-ditch where I’m from. Never heard of that other one.
Doorbell prank.
Dyraat
Translated it would be : ( smal)bell pull
Ping pong dash over here in Japan
Belleke trek
Ik was uit mijn schoenen geslagen toen ik hoorde dat er delen in Nederland zijn waar ze het “belletje lellen” noemen ipv “belletje trekken”…
Gewoon deurtje bellen bij ons
In the US south they use a racial slur, because of course
Rural southern person here we called it Knock, Knock, Dash how is that racist?
Your experience does not disprove mine, as a fellow southerner
it’s not. but you’re not the only one down there and you were, apparently, raised right. ;)
It apparently used to be called ni**er knocking. I’m in the rural south too, and I’ve always known it as dong, dong, ditch.
But then again my mom was arrested at a civil rights rally (on the side of black people being equal), so my upbringing might have something to do with it.
Crazy! and my mom and dad are both racist, my dad more so and never heard that version. But probably more my dad being that racist to him probably frown on such behavior or more he was shelter enough never to learn of such things. He did grow up on a farm.
I do unfortunately had tons of racist jokes told to me which sucks having those rattling around in my brain pan.
sucks having those rattling around in my brain pan.
we aren’t responsible for everything what got put into our heads, just everything we pass on from them.
if it helps, sometimes i take that shit, write it down (and burn all evidence of it) to see if it gets it out of the brainpan. like how listening to the song you’ve had stuck in your head gets it out finally.
In 1980s deep south (not even rural) I definitely heard it called n* knocking.
I grew up in a very bigoted Southern town that was still firing people from schools for being gay in the 2000s, and they still frown on interracial marriage. The N Word was a regular part of life growing up.
We called it Ding Dong Ditch.
Heard that one too. And I grew up in racist state and town they had open KKK stickers on their bumpers but still never heard a racist version. Which guess I am grateful for.
If it came from the old world as “Knicky Knocky,” it would make sense* that the racist US version would sound similar to that.
/* As much as any racist shit “makes sense,” of course.
Spent some childhood in coastal Mississippi and I can attest this is the case
Mhm, midwest US and N***** Knocking was what we were told it was called, because of course.
It became Ding Dong Ditch once we grew up a little.
Removed by mod
Can confirm as an eighties kid in California
i might be a titch younger than you, i grew up in california, hit maturity right around the turn of the millenium and i learned the term when i moved to Utah in my 20s (early 2000s). california’s pretty big tho, shasta is not san diego.
my parents and friends all referred to it as doorbell ditching (or ding dong ditching), at least when i was around
I knew it as Ding Dong Ditch and then kids in my neighborhood told me it was called [Hard R] Knocking. This was mid-90s. I also spent ages 10-15 living in a trailer park in Florida, which probably explains this.
Honky Hookin’
Not sure what OP’s mom has to do with anything
American here: Doorbell dixie
American here. I can’t repeat what I was told this game was called.
Yeah that’s what my Aunt used to call it. {{shudder}}
Yeah, same for me, at least in the 70s and early 80s. I think later in the 80s, we started calling it “ding dong ditch”
Only American on earth that calls it that /s
It’s Nicky Nicky nine doors
Don’t ask an American from 20-30 years ago…
I grew up in Kentucky in the 80s and I grew up calling it a racial slur… and there was no shame around my neighborhood in calling it that because that’s just what it was called. I had no idea what the word meant until years later and now looking back on it I’m disgusted at all of the adults in my neighborhood who let us call it that.
Last week I watched O Brother Where Art Thou with my almost 10 year old daughter and at one point in the movie after it had been said a few times my daughter turned an looked at me and asked “What does ‘negro’ mean?”… and with that I feel like I’ve done a good job at stopping institutional racism in my family line.
Am American from that time frame. We called it ding dong ditch, and so did everyone else I ever heard.
I didn’t hear that phrase till I was an adult. My initial reaction was “Oh, that’s a much better phrase”.
All I know is that you are supposed to say you are looking for spare knickers if you get caught.
I always heard it referred to as “ding dong ditch” in the 90s. But I’m Canadian and my only exposure to American terminology was sanitized thru TV broadcasting rules. Was there some kind of racist/sexist/homophobic term floating around or something?
Yes. I won’t repeat the whole phrase but it was called “n-word knocking” by some of the older kids on the playground. For reference, I’m an elder millennial.
My aunt used to call it that… I knew, even as a kid, that was not cool.
Do you live in the south?
Nope, Midwest.
Elder millennial here too. Never lived in the south till I was older. This was the phrase I heard in elementary school.
What the absolute fuck. I’m in the same age bracket and I’ve never heard that before.
I’m in that age bracket too and remember it being referred to as this by some people. I came to the comments to see if it was a common thing or if I was just neighbors with racists…I guess a bunch of people were neighbors with racists.
Also in that bracket, grew up in Kentucky and can confirm, was neighbors with racists that passed it to their kids.
Oh you musta grew up in one of them fancy non-racist areas. Yeah, we definitely had this version even in the upper-midwest, along the rust belt. Elder millenial as well.
Elder millennial in the rust belt checking in. I didn’t hear it called ding ding ditch until the next generation came along. The racial slur was the only way I had heard it, but I was definitely the typical white male that looked like he fit in with the rural good ol boys crowd. Sadly still look the part until one of them accidentally mistakes me for an ally in their racist shit.
Why not ring and run? Or ding and dash?
How do people get such dumb colloquialisms to stick?
In Japanese, it’s ピンポンダッシュ which is a transliteration of “ping pong dash.”
Could also just translates to Pin Pon Dash. Pin Pon is Japanese onomatopoeia for the doorbell sound.
I guess, but that would be the transliteration of the Japanese onomatopoeia as “pin pon” afaik doesn’t really mean much in English. I thought with “ping pong,” we at least associate with the sound.
ding dong dash ?
Ohhhhhh, that makes more sense, I always heard, “Nicky-nicky nine doors”
Belletje Lellen
Nobody else called it Knock-Knock Zoom-Zoom???
I’ve heard of most of the ones mentioned in the comments, but this one is new to me (Western U.S.).
