MAGIC WORDS • Multiple choice "The 'eenie, meenie, miney, moe' ending in which the murderer could have been any one of the suspects . . ." -- Carolyn Wheat, How to Write Killer Fiction (200 ) Origins: The phrase is "based on a counting system that predates the Ro man occupation of Britain, that may even be pre-Celtic. If so, it is a rare surviving link with the very distant past. It not only gives us a fragmentary image of how children were being amused at the time Stonehenge was built, but tells us something about how their elders counted and thought and ordered their speech."7 Variations and Incantations: • Eenie-meenie-chili-beanie -- Lou Ann Walker, A Loss For Words (1987) "Eenie-meenie-chili-beanie, as Bullwinkle Moose used to say, the spirits are about to speak." -- Stephen King, Bag of Bones (1998) • Eenie-meenie-miney-mo "[I]n the midst of my mental eenie-meenie-miney-mo . . ." -- Joanna Weaver, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (2000) • Eenie-meenie-minie-mo "'Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,' I muttered to myself, and headed for the center cell." -- Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (1991) • Eenie-meenie-minie-mo, Fet-tuc-ci-ne Al-fre-do -- Janet Podleski, Looneyspoons (1997) • Eenie meenie mynie mo -- Jon Sciezska, Knights of the Kitchen Table (1991) -- Jerry Spinelli, Space Station Seventh Grade (2000) • Eenie meenie mynie moe -- Richard Rodriguez, Brown (200 ) • Eenie meenie op-sa-keenie, Ooo aaa oo be-lee-nie, Ah-chie kah-chee Li ver-a-chee -- This incantation is part of a children's clapping game (T. Berry Brazelton, Touchpoints 3 to 6 [2001]). • Ena mena mona mite -- Notes and Queries (1854) In Literature: • "I went to the four levers. None of them were marked. There was only one way to figure out which was the right one. I had to call upon all my Traveler experience and special powers to figure it out. It's called . . . 'Eenie, Bill Bryson, Made in America (1994)