We Get Letters, Part II

The age-old controversy goes on. Is it the Hokey-Pokey, as we here in the down to earth, good old U.S.A. know it, or is it the "hokey cokey" as they say in Merry Old England? Who are we to believe?

There is evidence supporting both camps. Nancy Procter, former US National Park Service ranger and all-around, honest-as-the-day-is-long hokey-pokey dancer is in the first camp. She presents as evidence a t-shirt she found at her place of work. You can see a picture of this t-shirt a few posts back. The t-shirt plainly shows "Hokey-Pokey" with a P.

Now, two faithful readers of this blog, Alan and Eileen Simmons, of Wakefield, the U.K. and Leran, France part-timers have sent us this card. There in black and pink (PINK? What the....) are the words "hokey cokey". I closely examined this card and found it to be printed in England. An English card printed in England presumably by English people, in pink. Well....need I say more?

You can believe what you want, dear reader. You can believe Nancy whom you probably know personally and like just fine, and 300 million other good and upstanding Americans who know in their heart of hearts that the phase is "Hokey-Pokey. Or, if you so choose, you can believe this strange Alan Simmons character (who is an English composer, by the way) and his wife Eileen, (who is also English, hmmm) that the phrase is hokey cokey. Now, I certainly don't want to influence your thinking. I'm trying to lay the facts out as best I can in the most un-biased manner possible. We all must decide if we are going to use the terminology of our former colonial masters, the British, or that of 300 million forthright, honest, clear-thinking Americans (who went over to Europe twice and won the wars single handed, I might add).