Open vocabulary/dialect question...

[conuly]

(Once I have enough answers I'll make a poll!)

What do you call that activity where you knock on somebody's door/ring the bell and then run away before they open it? And if you've heard other things, what other things have you heard?

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Comments

[topaz_eyes]

Knock Knock Ginger

Nicky Nicky Nine Doors

[fox]

Ding dong ditch or ding dong dash

[lilly_c]

Bobby knocker run

[james]

I have heard 'ding dong ditch' but only in the last few years. I never knew it by a set phrase or name, before. When I was a kid, pranks involved the telephone, mostly. (Because everyone knew all the kids in the neighborhood, so they'd know who did it and you'd get in trouble. But there was no caller ID or tracing alls, back then (not for kids' pranks anyway.)

[oursin]

I've heard Knock Down Ginger.

[dark_phoenix54]

I've heard it called 'ding dong ditch', but I may have gotten that off the Simpsons. No one had doorbells where I grew up so we never did that!

[siliconshaman]

Knock and Run Away, or Ding Dong Ditch...

As an aside, I've a couple of cats that do this. Meow to be let in, and then run away...and yes, it's both cute and annoying.

[radiantfracture]

Nicky Nicky Nine Doors!

[ioplokon]

Ding dong ditch!

[brokenallbroken]

Ding dong ditch is all I ever heard it called until I started perusing r/UnethicalLifeProTips

(southwest/west coast US)

[bearshorty]

Ding dong ditch

[gwydion]

Ring and Run. Philly, 1970's-1990. As an adult out west I heard "Ding Dong Ditch," but it might be from movies.

[antisoppist]

Knock Down Ginger. (UK)

[angelofthenorth]

Knock down ginger
Cherry knocking

[glinda]

It was ‘chap-door-running’ when I was at school - southern Scotland in the 90s. (I grew up in the countryside so didn’t partake, but that’s what the kids who lived in town called it.) I’ve definitely heard ding dong ditch, but I suspect that’s a US pop culture import because it was always said slightly self-consciously like the person didn’t know the proper term but knew you’d know what they meant if they called it that.

[agoodwinsmith]

Knocky knocky nine doors.

I see above that others list "nicky" instead of "knocky" so I'll say this is from southern BC.

[profiterole_reads]

o_O I assume this is a US custom. We don't do that in France.

[conuly]

I don't think you're really supposed to do it anywhere, but I know people do it in the US and the UK.

[conuly]

And by "people" I mean "annoying children"

[8hyenas]

ding dong ditch

[foms]

It has a name? I would not have thought to call it anything much other than "that activity where you knock on somebody's door/ring the bell and then run away before they open it".

[conuly]

It appears to have several names, most of which can be broadly divided into the dingdong group and the knocking group.

Which makes sense. The alternative is a bit wordy.

[conuly]

Why are cats.

[nocowardsoul]

Ding dong ditch!

I saw other names in a Tumblr poll but I don't remember them.

[chomiji]

Ding dong ditch!

(I grew up in the 1960s in the Washington, DC area.)

[wenchpixie]

Chap and run (Scottish, chap means knock in this case, and I know people have been doing it since at least the 1960s and calling it that due to a plethora of social history museums with recorded interviews. There seemed to be a fashion to do that. Anyway, ny 13 yo cousin still calls it that.).

[fred_mouse]

I don't have a term for it. I thought it was just one of those things from movies until I moved into current house in my 30s, and we had someone do that in the witching hours, having set fire to our front door mat.

[conuly]

Could be worse. Could’ve been a flaming bag of poop. That’s something I’ve only heard of, but I’ve been really tempted to do some casual stalking when witnessing some dog walkers….

[fred_mouse]

Bleargh. As it was the combination of rubber door mat and firelighters was pretty noxious.

[vvalkyri]

I never did it but I know it is ding dong ditch