Mary Mack is a clapping game played by children in English-speaking countries. It is known in various parts of the United States and in New Zealand and has been called "the most common hand-clapping game in the English-speaking world".[1]
In the game, two children stand or sit opposite to each other, and clap hands in tune to a rhyming song.
The same song is also used as a jumprope rhyme,[2] although rarely so according to one source.[3]
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Various versions of the song exist; a common version goes:
In some variations, Mary Mack asks her mother for fifteen cents rather than fifty.[4] These variations may represent an earlier version of the song. It changed because of the speed of the rhyme and the similarity of the spoken words "fifteen" and "fifty", and because there were few things one could buy with 15 cents in the later part of the 20th century.
The first verse, without the repetition, is also a riddle with the answer "coffin".[5]
Early mentions of the part about the elephant do not include the part about Mary Mack.[6][7]
The origin of the name Mary Mack is obscure, and various theories have been proposed. According to one theory Mary Mack originally was Merrimac (an early ironclad that would have been black, with silver rivets) suggesting that the first verse refers to the Battle of Hampton Roads during the American Civil War.