ワン、ツー、さん、し、 Why and how common is it?


I never formally learned Japanese but heard that in some songs. It's not
いち、に、さん、し, and not just one, two, three, four, but mixed together. I didn't
care at the first time, but after I heard that in another song I'm curious. I
checked and found they were from the same composer/lyricist and singer
combination, but there are also others according to Google. Is it just because
some specific lyricist or singer likes this, and some other lyricists learn
from them, or is it more common, for example also used outside musics? Even if
it's the artist's preference, does it contain any kind of references, or just
could be (re)invented by any normal Japanese person? And is there any specific
reason that they are all switching to onyomi from 3 and stopping at 4?




As for popularity, I think it's fairly common -- as I've heard this kind of
mixed counting (including variations such as ワン、ツー、さん、はい "One, two, three,
go!") -- as a **joke**. I'm not going to explain why it's funny because it'll
spoil the fun :) but at least I can point out that the loanword スリー takes
three morae, which is overlong and sounds somewhat clumsy in the normal two-
morae-per-number counting rhythm.

The reason why it stops at 4 is simply because it's a time-marking shout in
order to synchronize rhythm before the next musical bar. Most songs have
quadruple time, so we count four beats.




As for popularity, I think it's fairly common -- as I've heard this kind of
mixed counting (including variations such as ワン、ツー、さん、はい "One, two, three,
go!") -- as a **joke**. I'm not going to explain why it's funny because it'll
spoil the fun :) but at least I can point out that the loanword スリー takes
three morae, which is overlong and sounds somewhat clumsy in the normal two-
morae-per-number counting rhythm.

The reason why it stops at 4 is simply because it's a time-marking shout in
order to synchronize rhythm before the next musical bar. Most songs have
quadruple time, so we count four beats.

