Skip to main content
cites and expansion
Source Link
lly
  • 4.9k
  • 1
  • 17
  • 25

In Australia, long ago, we would call this 'stacks onstacks on the mill’ (1, 2, 3).

#stacks on

As a cry in a schoolyard game, where children pile up on top of a victim, the chant is sometimes expanded to stacks on the mill, more on still. Recently, we have seen the phrase abbreviated simply to stacks on! The phrase is also used in descriptions of ball games, especially Aussie Rules, when a number of players pile up in attempting to get at the ball. The children's game is possibly a survival of a game formerly played in Cheshire, which 'consisted in getting a man down on the ground and then others falling on the top of him till there was a complete pile or stack of men' (English Dialect Dictionary...).

That's from the mill'Australian National Dictionary Centre, who misdate the EDD and confuse the name of the Cheshire lad's game ("stack-upo’-the-kill") with a fairly identical Oxfordshire children's game ("more sacks to the mill"). Those two will probably be the earliest attested versions of this game, although I couldn't claim anyone in the UK still calls it that: they were dated terms c. 1905.

In Australia, long ago, we would call this 'stacks on the mill'.

In Australia, long ago, we would call this stacks on the mill’ (1, 2, 3).

#stacks on

As a cry in a schoolyard game, where children pile up on top of a victim, the chant is sometimes expanded to stacks on the mill, more on still. Recently, we have seen the phrase abbreviated simply to stacks on! The phrase is also used in descriptions of ball games, especially Aussie Rules, when a number of players pile up in attempting to get at the ball. The children's game is possibly a survival of a game formerly played in Cheshire, which 'consisted in getting a man down on the ground and then others falling on the top of him till there was a complete pile or stack of men' (English Dialect Dictionary...).

That's from the Australian National Dictionary Centre, who misdate the EDD and confuse the name of the Cheshire lad's game ("stack-upo’-the-kill") with a fairly identical Oxfordshire children's game ("more sacks to the mill"). Those two will probably be the earliest attested versions of this game, although I couldn't claim anyone in the UK still calls it that: they were dated terms c. 1905.

Source Link
Sydney
  • 7.6k
  • 2
  • 18
  • 24

In Australia, long ago, we would call this 'stacks on the mill'.