Page:Pekinese Rhymes (G. Vitale, 1896).djvu/96

 肚兒疼 雪 花兒飄 肚 甚麽 雪 甚麽雪 搖葫蘆 孫猴 兒钢打 猪八戒 搖 甚麽搖

Chinese children practice a game which is also known by boys in foreign countries. Two boys sit one facing the other and strike first their own hands together and then each other's. To keep measure with the movement they mark, the time with these words, which are meaningless, and are huddled together only for the sake of the final rhymes. The game is called 打 花巴掌 ta' hiia' pa' chang-'. 呀 ya', is purely phonetic and meaningless. 倒 打 ta:)ta:、 to strike alternately ― here the character 倒 is pronounced in the fourth and not in the third tone. 建三棍 5i lieii? san' kun，r， uninterruptedly three sticks ( that is to say three blows). 數 in the third tone shu means to calculate, to reckon. 誕 tsan, to carve, to chisel. 籠 子 tsan tzu, a chisel. 銀 餘 yin- ting, an ingot of silver. 夾棍兒 chia' kun'« ，r， an instrument of torture to squeeze the ankles lit. squeezing sticks. 郞 種 k'o> lang' ch'iu- ； I cannot find any explanation of this. The Chinese say that they do not know the meaning of the word. AH that I could get from them is that the vulgar word k'o'-lang ，i,, means a corner, and is used instead of the more common 嬉拉兒 ka'-la- V ( written