In about 1949 my brother Ron took a printing course in high school. I don’t know what all it entailed, but in one part of it he was required to set up a printer in some manner to print something on a business card sized piece of stock paper. Now this was many years before the computer was used for this purpose. However it was done he had to install each letter in a block so it would print out the desired message. I believe all of the type face had to be installed backward.
Anyway the message he decided to print was the following:
Seville der dago
Towsan buses inaro
Nojo demis trux
Summit cowsin
Summit dux.
After he had printed his card he delighted in handing it to others to try to decipher the message. At the time I was about eleven years old, and it looked like something written in Italian to me, but he assured me it was not.. Because I could not determine the answer, I memorized it for future use.
Anyone else ever seen it before, or can you decipher it even if you never have?
Translation - "See,
ReplyDelete>> Willy, there they go. A thousand buses in a row. No, Joe, them's trucks. Some
>> with cows, and some with ducks."
Found it on the Internet.
Yes. I saw it in Johnny Casies restaurant in Longview tx on highway 80 back in the 1970s. He had it on business style cards for the customers to pick up and try to decipher.
Deletei also remember this from around the age of 11 in the 1950s. the man i referred to as Uncle Lloyd, who had married my biological grandmother, used to share such things as practical jokes, tiny cigarette-smoking dogs, stamp collecting and silver dollars with my sister and me. i'm pretty sure he had this "riddle" on a printed card too.
DeleteI was stumped. Thanks, Rosie!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have been smart enough to ask Mr. Google. That is the right answer though.
ReplyDeleteIn 1965 my father showed me his money clip with this saying on it. I struggled for years with trying to figure it out. He then read it to me and it became so obvious.
ReplyDeleteSeville, der dago
ReplyDeleteTausen busis inaro
Noville dem iss trux
Votsinnims? Cousen dux.
When deciphered, it reads
See, Ville, der day go,
Tausen buses in a row
No, Ville, dem is trucks,
Vots in 'ems? Cows 'n ducks.
First, you have it spelled wrong. My dad had it in with a box of assorted junk, along with some German money and uniform buttons and rank from a nazi sniper he killed, and some other stuff. It was printed on a pink card. It read:
ReplyDelete"Saville der dago, toussin busses inaro. Nojo, demis troux, summit cousin, summit doux."
It's two foriegners talking. - "Say, will, there they go, thousand busses in a row." "No, Joe, them is trucks, some with cows in, some with ducks."
From my facebook page as I couldn't upload the photo here. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10222467512790899&set=a.2230487055976&__cft__[0]=AZWxvoViFVwd4umiMN8Zy8WpBlSTPEUv-RipcCeju1oBISZfC0ywKqsAWS4maLBSWhuEAzbvKqFkV-W2jT5jhwj_NFFkKSbwOnb2inSDxSez7gGsFd6B5Kklih9tmuxYlwc&__tn__=EH-R
DeleteI am not real certain of the year, but it was around 1950, when my brother & I were respectively 13 & 11 years old that we used to hang out at a local gas station. It was here that the old man attendant (Brigham Hicks) had this silly riddle of yours printed in nice big lettering on a board that he liked to show to people to see if they could make sense of it. As we remember, not many could. He never told us where he got it.
ReplyDeleteMy brother asked me today if I remembered this old gas station attendant & the riddle. I remembered both very well & it brought back fond memories. Since neither one of us had ever seen or heard of this riddle since way back then, he thought that it was just a local riddle. I then did a Google search & found your article on it. For what it is worth, we believe your brother Ron’s version is what we saw back then. Thanks for the memories.
Gas Station Name: Harmon’s
Location: Brady’s Bend, PA , On Route #68 East, 20 miles from Butler.
My dad had one of those cards and stumped me on it. I was old enough to read so I must have been 8 or 9 at the time...in the very early 50s I'd guess.
ReplyDeleteMy third-grade teacher wrote it on the board (1960). I've never heard or seen it anywhere else until now.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the translation! My mom came across this in Perry's Bar in McMillan, MI.in 1966. She was so intrigued by it she copied it into her travel journal. She would have laughed and laughed had she ever figured it out.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, my father and I stopped into a tavern in the middle of nowhere in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula. This saying was printed on a cardboard sign behind the bar. My father asked the bartender what it meant and he made us guess a few times before he told us. I wrote it down on a napkin and made my own sign when I got home.
ReplyDeleteI have a sign that has the translation on the back. Along with a copyright 1945 or possibly 1948. Followed by the name Otto Ulrich.
ReplyDeleteI saw this in a little shop in Geneva on the Lake,Ohio....Memorial Day weekend around 1969-70....Thousands of kids would descend on that town in various states of insobriety, and this shop owner apparently knew it....He had this sign prominently displayed by the cash register, and we were compelled to ask him what it said...He, of course was happy to tell us.....which resulted in us convulsing in uncontrollable laughter.....
ReplyDeleteI googled this because I was telling my kids about it....
DeleteI googled this because I was telling my kids about it....
DeleteI saw this in a little shop in Geneva on the Lake,Ohio....Memorial Day weekend around 1969-70....Thousands of kids would descend on that town in various states of insobriety, and this shop owner apparently knew it....He had this sign prominently displayed by the cash register, and we were compelled to ask him what it said...He, of course was happy to tell us.....which resulted in us convulsing in uncontrollable laughter.....
ReplyDeleteSaw it in Florida in the 50's when I was a child. We were on a family vacation and we all talked about it and fanally deciphered it. It stuck in a crevice of my mind because it was nice to have all of us together working on the same little problem happily.
ReplyDeleteI had a sixth grade teacher write this on the board (forty-six years ago). Why I can remember this, but not what I had for lunch is beyond me! Fond memories of a simpler time, however.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather wrote this out for me probably about 1989, which would have made him around 82 at the time. I did not realize it was a real thing that other people knew about. I wonder what else he told me....
ReplyDeleteI used to work at a truck stop diner as a kid washing dishes that had this sign hanging on the wall
ReplyDeletethere's a little cafe truck stop style place somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas Fort Worth Texas that has that very same phrase written in that very same writing up on their wall by their kitchen behind the diner little row of chairs to order and my dad would always take me there when why when I was a little kid and I always wondered who wrote that and why it was written that way so this morning I Googled it and I found your little web page talking about your brother who it's made the type mistake anyways I think it's great and awesome and I'm finally satisfied to know after all these years where that originally started from I wish I knew the name of that little cafe though well God bless
ReplyDeleteJack's diner .. Weatherford tx
DeleteMy dad had it on a card back in the 50's after he came home from the war. He served in France, and I always thought he got it in the army, and it was supposed to mimic French. The original version was "Saville der dago, toussin busses inaro. Nojo, demis troux, summit cousin, summit doux."
ReplyDeleteIn the kitchen making breakfast this morning this poem played out in my memory.
ReplyDeleteI decided to speak it into Google and your article is what I found: "Say Billy there they go, [a]thousand buses in a row." "No, Joe, them is trucks, some with cows in some with ducks." I was delighted to hear how many of you had parallel memories from the 50s and 60s.
Wow... My mind is sooo blown right now. 1st heard of this from a Family friend, and was stymied as to the "point" of the whole thing. But curious enough to have memorized it. This was in the late 70's, I tried searching for this on the internet in the past but never found anything. Just searched for it and BAM, dozens of shared memories. My OTHER favorite memory was of Fuzzy Wuuzy soap that grew hair... I still remember the way it smelled and this was late 1960's.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis was in the back of my Latin text book in Junior High School, but the second line was "Fortibus es in aro" part of the Roman expression "the strength of Rome is in her fields" .
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ReplyDeleteSlightly different version. When I heard first was shown this back in the early 80s in Great Britain, it was presented as a street address. You can see the British (and Spanish) influence:
ReplyDeleteSi, Senora Derdago
40 Lorez Inarow
Demart Lorez, Demar Trux
Fullacowsanens, Andux
Translation:
See Senora, there they go, 40 lorries in a row. Them aren't lorries, them are trucks. Full of cows and hens and ducks!
My wife showed this (handwritten) to me when we were dating 35 or more years ago. She got it from her Dad (I think) anyway had not heard it again until recently.
ReplyDeleteThought about it from time to time. Forgot how to write it out.
I thought it was supposed to fool a reader into thinking it was French
The head of our English department, Miss Kelly, was also the school newspaper & yearbook faculty adviser. Ours was the Elkhart High School (Indiana) with about 1400 students. I saw this rhyme every day when in the publication office, first as business mgr. of the paper 1956-57 then as co-editor of the yearbook 1957-58. It was on a poster perhaps 24" high by 30" long. The paper company that supplied our vocational print shop with its supplies had its name & logo on the lower right corner. I can no longer recall that name. Every newbie, joining one of the staffs, would be asked to translate the entire saying, while we old hands stood by smiling with our superior knowledge. Hope this helps. Stu Gruber
ReplyDeleteSaw a version of this in a restaurant in Longview, TX, circa 1981!
ReplyDeleteWe did too Was it johnny cases on highway 80?
DeleteMy middle school Latin teacher had this version on the wall of our classroom in the early 1990s, and for whatever reason I remember it to this day (I grew up in Michigan; according to him this is a how upper peninsula Michiganders would have sounded to Latin speakers). I am studying calligraphy, and I like to pen this as practice because it inexplicably never gets old!
ReplyDeletesijo der dego
fortibvses in ero
nojo demis trvx
sewatis inem
cowsendvx
Thanks for the stroll down memory lane, internets :)
This was behind the bar at the Arsenal in WLA . The owner Leon had you read it to determine if you were ok for another cocktail.
ReplyDeleteOur version ends with
ReplyDelete"Fullo hensan geesan dux"
Pity is that the original version of this seems lost. It started with Ave Caesar der dago... and actually meant something pompous in Latin.
My grandfather owned a local floor sanding business and had a business card size sign with this saying on it. Since our families were Pennsylvania "Dutch" and spoke it as much as English, I always assumed the misspelling was simply Pennsylvania Dutch, or phonically Dutch English. We had no problem reading / saying it! Looked and sounded just right. I have repeated it from time to time over the last 60 some years foy children and grandchildren but never said it in print for over 50 years. Tonight, I am catching up on reading, my family history in "The Earth is the Lords by John Landis Ruth, pretty much the Mennonite story. There on page 703, was a poem, obviously fashioned like Hey Choe ...., It was, as the author suggested, a mischievous comment on conservative Mennonite customs which caused division. I typed this first few words in Google and up came the little poem I have not seen in over 50 years!! Oh the wonders of technology!
ReplyDeleteFrom the mid-60's to the mid-70's my parents owned a neighborhood bar/restaurant. This was on a little sign posted at the bar. It was great fun to hear all those who had "over-imbibbed" try and figure it out.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad died in 1961, and he had a copy of this rhyme in his wallet. It differs slightly from what is printed in this thread.
ReplyDeleteSeville derdago
Tousin buses inaro
Onojo demaint buses
Demis trux
Sumit cousin
Sumit dux
In the mid-1960s, my Mom had a card with the Seville, etc. printed on it. She thought it was the cleverest thing since Shakespeare. I thought it was stupid, and still do. Maybe I was adopted?
ReplyDeleteA version hung in Mac's gas station in Rock Hill Missouri in the 1960s and 70s.
ReplyDeleteThere was a tune that went with it that I learned at summer camp in the early 50's.
ReplyDeleteI learned:. "Hey there Joe, there they go. 40 busses in a row. Them aren't busses, them are trucks, them are filled with cows and ducks."
ReplyDeleteThis hung behind the bar in Leopolis, WI at “The Ranch House”....around the late 60s (I was shown it in the early 70s while there with my grandparent). Bar owner had a fake lapel flower he would squirt new folks with (after a “smell this!”)...also had a door to the “basement” where he would ask a new customer to go fetch a case of beer for him for a drink...when they opened the door to head “downstairs” fake monkeys and scary masks popped out. They flipped out on occasion... Hilarious stuff for a 7 yr old to see!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid my dad told me about a bar in Fond Du Lac, WI that had this on a sign when he was young in the 50s. It stuck in my head. I never knew the whole story.
ReplyDeleteLearned that as a child. My parents had a small sign in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteMy family is Pennsylvania Dutch and this is a rhyme my father taught us. But it was somewhat different than the one sited here. I never saw it written down, but here it is phonetically, perfect for the PA Dutch dialect my father and his family spoke onct:
ReplyDeleteSay Villie, der dey goah,
A sousant bussess in a rowah.
Dem ain't bussess, dem iss trux,
Sommit geese and sommit dux.
My father in law had a sign with the saying mounted on the back of his bar in Bayonne, NJ
ReplyDeleteSeville - Der - Dago
ReplyDeleteTousand - Busses - Inaro
Nojo-Demis-Trux-Sumit
Cowsin - Sumit - Dux
This was the sign my grandfather had behind his bar in the Rathskeller of their home in Belleville, IL. I became aware of this, I’m guessing around 1957-1959. My sister has the original sign and I had one made that hangs above my bar. I have been saying this saying for over 60+ years. It’s a favorite childhood memory that has stayed with me.
I heard it:
ReplyDeleteSeville der deygo
Forty lorries inarow
Demarnt lorries. Demar trucks
Fullov pigsin hensin dux
The truckstop in the article below is where I first encountered this enigmatic phrase. When I was a truck driver in training in the early 90s. I ate there many times in the 90s. It was the Truck Inn, at exit 48 on I 80. It's closed now unfortunately, but you can see it's location across from the Pilot/Flying J on the other side of the street.
ReplyDeletehttps://lion-tales.blogspot.com/2011/03/silly-riddle.html?m=1
Sorry, I posted the wrong link. The correct one is below.
Deletehttps://www.erench.com/RESTAUR/NEVADA/TRUCK/index.htm
By the way, I should have said that the truckstop article above includes many pictures of the inside of the truckstop, and of the sign with the mysterious phrase on it. Which was above the horseshoe shaped center counter in the restaurant.
DeleteOMG!!! I do love Google! I woke up this morning with that silly poem, running through my head,. All of it, from say Willie through ducks I’m at a point in my life where sometimes I can’t remember what I had for breakfast when it’s only lunchtime, but I do remember that whole poem 1950 sounds about right I couldn’t for the life of me remember where it came from I still can’t but I think it was probably one of my uncles who showed it to me. I had no idea it was so widespread
DeleteI did a quick Google search for “thousand trucks some with cows, some with ducks and found it immediately!!!
Memory is a funny thing I have a memory for song, lyrics, and poems I guess because of the rhyming. Sometimes I just remember pieces and Google always helps me out!
Deleteby the way, I learned it in the Bronx, New York City, and I believe it was 1950, give or take a year.
My MacCallum Grandfather had been a village schoolmaster in Berwickshire. Around 1946 I stareted to learn Latin and French in school and he wrote out this riddle for me:
ReplyDeleteCe Ville, derdigo,
Forte busez inaro;
Demno busez, demar trux.
Vatis indem, cusan dux.
Easy when you read it aloud - not so easy when you use your fledgling skills in Latin and French!