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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickety-boo, kilter, & whack From: GUEST,James Date: 09 May 03 - 01:06 PM I have a rabbit called tickety boo....does that count ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickety-boo, kilter, & whack From: Schantieman Date: 09 May 03 - 12:39 PM And what about hunky-dory? S |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickety-boo, kilter, & whack From: Amos Date: 09 May 03 - 12:05 AM Tickety-boo is a British expression originally meaning all set, ducks in a row, put to rights, and it derives from the propriety and sense of order acheived by being properly ticketed (for example as a passenger, or a shipper) when confronted with the appropriate authorities (for example, a conductor or Customs inspector). Tickets are also used to control the flow of parts in repair shops, for example, and in governing the administration of meals in some contexts (hence, "meal-ticket" and "pawn-ticket"). The construction is just a baby-talk formation, a kind of silly slangery also found in constructions like "peek-a-boo", "nighty-night-night" and "hickory-dickory-dock". Like "bibbety-bobbity-boo" it has no inherent meaning except a sense of playful innocence. Gob, meaning mouth, is as old as the hills, and the sense of being gob-smacked is a reasonable extension akin to being knocked in the jaw. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickety-boo, kilter, & whack From: GUEST,Q Date: 08 May 03 - 01:49 PM Gob-mouthed- to gape- has been in print since the 19th c. I wonder if gobsmacked is a variant? Memory plays tricks, but I am "sure" that I heard it in the U. S. Army in the 1940s. Gob-stick is in the OED as a spoon, but to an American musician, it is a clarinet. Many words from gob = mouth. Gob string is a bridle. Another possibility: God-smacked =euphemized to gobsmacked, struck dumb. Tickety-boo, I think, was spread in America by Dnny Kaye (see Nigel Parsons, above). It is the name of a champion Dalmatian, Kat: Ch Tickety Boo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: katlaughing Date: 08 May 03 - 12:58 PM Oh, but Bill, won't it be a great name for a cat?! My next Siamese is going to be a "Tickety-Boo!" *bg* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: MMario Date: 08 May 03 - 12:57 PM Bill - I've only heard it via BBC-America; but where used there it sounded perfectly "normal" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Bill D Date: 08 May 03 - 12:52 PM 64 years old, and I NEVER heard 'tickety-boo' before...and I cannot comprehend why it would have been adopted by myriads of people as a useful expression. Some slang/vernacular/euphemism is 'quaint'...and some is clever and pertinant...and some is just plain silly and stilted. (humorless, grumpy old curmudgeon, am I?...*grin*...you betcha!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: MMario Date: 08 May 03 - 09:32 AM one orf the'phrase origins' sites has this: "Gob" is a very old (about 400 years old, actually) English dialect word meaning "mouth," probably taken from Gaelic or Scots, and related to "gab," also meaning "mouth" or, more commonly, "speech." To be "gobsmacked" is to be astonished or flabbergasted, as stunned as if you had been suddenly "smacked" (struck) in the mouth. Curiously, "gobsmacked" has only been found in print as far back as the 1980s, but it's reasonable to assume that the term has been around for much longer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Beccy Date: 08 May 03 - 09:24 AM Okay, can someone answer for me where "Gobsmacked" originated??? Beccy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Nigel Parsons Date: 08 May 03 - 04:50 AM Danny Kaye sings "Everything is Tickety Boo" in the 1958 film "Merry Andrew" Nigel |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: katlaughing Date: 08 May 03 - 01:22 AM If it was Sean Connery doing the off kilter it would cause quite a stir...might knock a whole country outta whack! Thanks for the references and tomdick&harryfoolery, phoaks! LOL!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: GUEST,Q Date: 07 May 03 - 06:28 PM B-W-L- the master of errordition! But he is whack on target with most of what he said (I think). The rest is could be doodle-de squat. Whack was used by the cowboys. Charles A Siringo, in "A Texas Cowboy," 1885: I was too weak to walk that far on account of my back being out of whack." One of several quotations in the OED. Kilter- also a poker term. OED: 1895, "Suppose you had an utterly valueless hand dealt to you ............, this sort of hand is termed a kilter." Lot of off- words. One we see a lot of here is off-rhyme: A partial or near-rhyme. OED. Lots of out- words as well. Be sure to distinguish between out-of-kilter and off-kilter. The first is what the kilter says when he runs out of plaids. A Scotsman doing a strip-tease is an off-kilter. Q's own dictionary. MMario- adding a quote to the 1628 occurence of kilter (found under kelter in the OED: "The very sight of one [a gun] (though out of kilter) was a terror unto them." Gov. W. Bradford, Massachusetts Colony (the word prob. brought with him from England). OED 1987 supplement. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: catspaw49 Date: 07 May 03 - 05:24 PM Hey there Knower of Things......You said, "To say, "I got squat when I traded in my car" or, "I didn't get squat when I traded in my car" both mean the same thing. Squat is of so little value that it doesn't matter whether you get it or not. You're screwed either way.".........Well obviously you don't know everything 'cause if you go and squat in a male prison, you generally only get screwed ONE way!" Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: katlaughing Date: 07 May 03 - 04:55 PM Oh dear So what of the whack fal diddle eye ay? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: CarolC Date: 07 May 03 - 04:53 PM I love "Toodle-Pipski" myself. Does anyone know if that one pre-dates A. J. (Ace) Rimmer? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: katlaughing Date: 07 May 03 - 04:50 PM Oh, LFF, what a wonderful story!! I had missed that; it's been many years since I've read any of the novels. Spaw, I love the way your mind connects things..I can just see the scene you set up!! MMario, thanks, darlin'...for definitions AND MORE, hopefully to come.**bg** |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 07 May 03 - 04:46 PM The suffix "y", when appended to a word, indicates a propensity toward exhibiting the characteristics of that word. IE, to be "funny" is to exhibit the characteristics of "fun". One might say that to be "funny" is to be "full of fun". Therefore, to be "whacky" is to be "full of whack". Now, the term "out of whack" means that something is not working correctly. And the term "whacky", previously defined as meaning "full of whack", also means that something is not working correctly. Therefore, to be "out of whack" and to be "full of whack" mean the same thing. That whack is some weird shit! The only other word that I know that exhibits this peculiar characteristic is "squat". To say, "I got squat when I traded in my car" or, "I didn't get squat when I traded in my car" both mean the same thing. Squat is of so little value that it doesn't matter whether you get it or not. You're screwed either way. I hope this diatribe did absolutely nothing to ease your confusion. Bruce aka Bee-dubya-ell Royal Poet Lariat of Mississippi aka Knower of Things Note to King khandu: Please don't assign me any more titles. Signing off is becoming a major pain in the ass. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Long Firm Freddie Date: 07 May 03 - 04:43 PM Now this is what I call tickety-boo: Hands Across the Sea LFF |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: Sooz Date: 07 May 03 - 04:28 PM "Out of wad" is an expression in this neck of the woods meaning out of line (or kilter?!). A wad stick was something the ploughboys used to keep the furrows the right distance apart. I think that this is where out of whack comes from. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: catspaw49 Date: 07 May 03 - 04:28 PM I think the phrase is meant to conjure up an image of a Scotsman with crabs........ Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: MMario Date: 07 May 03 - 04:26 PM kilter/out of kilter: first recorded occurance 1628; origin unknown. WHACK (slang) noun 1. [mid 18th century] a blow usually with some form of stick. 2. [late 18th century and still in use] a share, a just portion, a fair proportion – perhaps from the blow that divides something or maybe from the hammer-rap of the auctioneer which signals a fair share or deal. ________________________________________ OUT OF WHACK slang [late 19th century] (chiefly North American): out of order, malfunctioning ('on the blink'); out of line or alignment, maladjusted ('out of kilter'); not in proper condition. [from the idea of being out of 'whack'[see above] and thus out of proportion or balance] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: MMario Date: 07 May 03 - 04:21 PM Here's what I found one one: TICKETY-BOO The usual meaning ... that something is satisfactory, all in order, or OK. We can't be sure what its origin is. Eric Partridge always contended that the word was forces' slang, most probably from the Royal Air Force, and that it dates from the early 1920s or thereabouts (though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't find a written example before 1939). The difficult bit is taking the word back any further than the 1920s. It could combine "that's the ticket" (with much the same sense)with the childish phrase "peek-a-boo". But some find a link with the British Army in India, suggesting it comes from the Hindi phrase tikai babu, which is translated as "it's all right, sir". My money would be on the second suggested origin. |
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Subject: BS: Whence came tickiti-boo, kilter, & whack From: katlaughing Date: 07 May 03 - 04:13 PM I know I could go look these up, but it's much more fun to get your input! So...have heard "tickiti-boo" a few times on BBC-America, seemingly it means "tip-top" or "in perfect order." Where did it come from? Also, anudder Mudder and I were talking about "kilters" wondering what they were and how one got "off-kilter." Seagoing expression, perhaps? And, last but not least, what is a "whack" and how does one "get out of whack?" Was it some horrendous exercise in school for which one needed a doctor's note to dodge the tortures?**bg** thanks! |
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