Depends on the context! You need enough chuggas to establish that we are on a steam train before it makes sense to your audience that you are blowing a steam whistle – so if you’re at a bar and people have been talking about “chugging” beer all night, you may need several chuggas to get the btrain going in the right direction but if you’re already on a train you can just do the arm motion and say “choo choo” without even a single chugga.
I said this ditty to myself to see what I did and I produced *four* chuggas before the choo choo. Any fewer chuggas than that seems insufficient; and more than four is certainly acceptable, although with much more than four you start to bore your audience.
if your number of chuggas isn’t divisible by 4 then what the hell are you doing
I agree that no chuggas are required if you are already on a train (and similarly trainful situations like “pointing at a train”), but for other circumstances:
There’s a use/mention distinction. When *mentioning* “chugga chugga choo choo” it’s two chuggas, but when *using* it it’s eight chuggas.
(This is probably because of the same fundamental psychological reasons that cause there to be eight “nana”s before “Batman”.)
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I never heard this version! The version I know, after “grandpa shark”, it was “person swimming”, “shark attack”, “happy shark”.
I have done this song exactly once, and I have never been able to find anyone else doing anything close to the version that other Girl Guide troop taught us on that joint camping trip.
There was a lead-in about a couple going to the beach and swimming out into the ocean; I’m not sure how that part went exactly. It leads into the shark list with the line “Then they saw sharks”, though.
(Note that each line was only done once, not 3.5 times as in this thread.)
After the chorus is:
“So they swam back” [swimming motions with arms] “Faster back” [faster swimming motions] “Faster still” [even faster swimming motions] “Not fast enough” [continue swimming, shake head “no”] “They got a leg” [put one leg forward] “Other leg” [step forward with other leg] “And an arm” [hold out arm] “Other arm” [both arms forward] “And a head” [lean forward] “And I was dead” [not sure about motion for this one] [quietly] “And all were dead” [hold finger in front of mouth in “shh” gesture; “doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo” is subdued] [quietly] “And all were dead” [ditto] [big grin, normal volume] “Except the sharks!” [mama-shark clapping, because mama comes first in this version’s list]
(I think the shark order went “mama (horizontal clapping), papa or maybe daddy (vertical clapping), sister (diagonal clapping), baby (hand motions as if making a hand puppet talk; “doo doo”-ing is high-pitched), grandpa (place last knuckle of each finger against last knuckle of corresponding finger on other hand to evoke a mouth with no teeth left, make ‘talking’ motions; “doo doo”-ing is low-pitched and tries to sound old and toothless)”.)
And then you do the shark list again, and that’s how it ends.
It would be nice to refresh my memory on how that version went (though I’m kind of surprised by how much of it I *do* remember given that it was one time seven years ago), but I haven’t found anyone who knows what I’m talking about.
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Brinens and Things 