Ip dip is a rhythmic counting-out game with many variations, the purpose of which is to select an individual from a group, for instance to choose the starting player of a game. It has been commonly used in British playgrounds for many years. It also exists as "dip, dip, dog shit" in Australia. The speaker of the rhyme points to a different person in order as each stressed syllable is spoken; the person pointed to as the final syllable is spoken is thereby elected. The aim is to delay and distract from counting the syllables or otherwise fixing the result; the rhyme should be so long that the speaker loses count and cannot predict the chosen person. Perhaps this unpredictability is the reason that there are so many variations, including the practice of stringing variations together — which may be considered cheating.

Examples

Australia

A common Australian version goes: A variation of this version was featured on Bluey:

United Kingdom

A Welsh version of the rhyme runs: Another version, from Northern Ireland, runs:

Elsewhere

Other recorded versions include: A version from World War One was recorded by Thomas Ringlestone: Another version runs: