Lots of presumably learned research and obscure historical fact in that article. But it continually states that eeny-meeny is a 'counting system' eg. "used by shepherds to count their sheep" etc.
Eeeny-meeny is not a counting system. Why would people use a nonsense rhyme to count things? It makes no sense (literally!). Eeny-meeny is used as a 'random selection system' when choosing arbitrarily from a series of options.
Odd to get that basic fact wrong in such an in-depth article.
After reading the article. I don’t see where they said it was a counting system. Rather that it has the same rhyming structure as counting systems and so it had to be considered a possibility that it came from that. Which by the end they said was very unlikely.
Point taken. I suppose the 'out' is open to interpretation. I read it as in 'counting out[loud]' or just 'counting out [the number of something]'. But I can see how they could have meant it as in 'counting out [which ones amongst X sheep were for mating/selling/killing/etc.
Eeeny-meeny is not a counting system. Why would people use a nonsense rhyme to count things? It makes no sense (literally!). Eeny-meeny is used as a 'random selection system' when choosing arbitrarily from a series of options.
Odd to get that basic fact wrong in such an in-depth article.