In for the Count

Many children’s games involve “counting out” rhymes for choosing one or more of the players for some special role. Everybody probably knows some version of the one that begins, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” But there is just one other such rhyme of which I retain a possibly fragmentary memory. And although there are probably many other variations, these two lines are all that have stuck with me:

“Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar-Man, Thief/

Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief”

Those words, however, raise a host of questions in my mind. What are they really about? Is it some sort of spell or incantation? – an attempt at divining the future life of whomever the “counter” lands upon? If so, it seems to be divided into two parts – first a somewhat logical progression descending the economic social scale, from the wealthy, all the way down to those forced to beg and steal. (I take no responsibility for the gender usage.) But then we switch to a brief list of professions. Taking them in order: you might think that “Doctor” is pretty straightforward. True, it is one of those careers which traditionally parents have dreamed of their children entering. But they are thinking of medical doctors.

The fact is that “doctor” comes from the Latin word meaning “teacher.” It’s what the “D” stands for in various academic degrees like “J.S.D.,” which means a person qualified to teach Law. This has led to three ironies in my own life. The first was that, after I acquired a Ph.D. degree at U.C. Berkeley in 1963, I found that some people were, in all seriousness, but somewhat to my discomfort, calling me “Dr. Brilliant.” The second irony was that, although my degree was actually in History, the “Ph.” means “Philosophy” – but I had never had a single course in Philosophy, or even been at all interested in it as a subject of study. Somewhat later in my life, when I became a professional writer of epigrams, the third irony manifested itself, because many people saw philosophical meanings in my work, and assumed that I must have been trained in that discipline.

But, getting back to “real” doctors, i.e. physicians, most of us have had some contact with the medical profession in our lives, and the frequency of contact, and the number of different doctors consulted, both seem to increase with advancing years. As with other occupations and professions, doctors generally make their living from people who are in trouble. If good health prevailed everywhere, doctors would be out of work. But, in the eyes of the general public, doctors have a very positive image, especially when compared with the next category on the list – members of the legal profession – whose livelihood also depends on people with problems.

Why are lawyers in general so little respected? This is no new phenomenon. In Henry VI Part 2, Shakespeare has a group of men discussing how to improve society, and one of them suggests, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

It seems that lawyers are perceived as making good incomes, while contributing relatively little to society. But of course, lawyers themselves, who are trained to make a case for any position, are very good at defending their profession, and will offer you all kinds of arguments about the necessity of their work and the benefits it has brought to society, such as school desegregation, or the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Well, now that we’ve taken care of the “Doctor” and the “Lawyer,” in our text, what about that “Indian Chief”? Is he there just to rhyme with “Thief”? No – I feel he may represent the whole field of professional leadership, as embodied in our political system. Need I remind you how often our elected leader has that same designation, as in “Hail to the Chief,” or “Commander in Chief”?

Even more to the point, our political language has been enriched with many words and expressions derived from Native American tongues – terms such as “powwow,” “sachem,” and “caucus.” And a whole faction which once bolted from the Republican Party to support a Democratic candidate, became known as the Mugwumps, a word originally borrowed from the Algonquian Indian language, and which has, since the 1880s, gone through a whole series of meanings, including “turncoat,” “independent,” and “fence sitter.”

Some people scoff at the idea of children’s doggerel as a repository of folk-wisdom. But, if you’re looking for non-scoffers, you can count me in.