Tickety-Boo

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Renee calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Renee, welcome to the program.

Oh, it’s my pleasure.

Oh, our pleasure as well. What can we do to help you?

Well, a few years ago, I worked for an Indian corporation out of Florida, and the Executive Secretary to the President, who is a very organized and proper Bostonian, was forever stating that this project or that was moving along tickety-boo.

Well, as a Midwesterner, I was really amused by this description, and I kind of made the assumption that because she was a former elementary school teacher that it might have been a carryover from dealing with youngsters for a number of years.

However, after I checked it out online, I found that the brief version is that it’s an outdated British expression.

But additionally, there is a Hindi phrase, Tikai Babu, I may not be saying that right, which is translated as, it’s all right, sir.

Because I’ve lost contact with this woman who used it with great regularity, I can’t ask what her original influence was.

And I’m more interested if there’s more to the source of this phrase than just how outdated it may be, because I kind of enjoy throwing it out there for conversation starters from time to time.

Yeah, I love it.

So I came for your expertise.

And when you talk about Indian, do you mean like seminal in Florida?

No, no, no, no, not Seminole, Florida, Eastern Indian.

Okay.

Subcontinental Indian.

All right.

Okay.

Interesting, yes, because there is that expression in Hindi, which is pronounced more like TK.

TK.

TK.

Which means it’s fine.

And I love that as a possible explanation for Tickety Boo.

I don’t know that we’ve ever nailed it down, though.

I mean, the other idea is that maybe it’s just a variation on, hey, that’s the ticket, you know, like that guy always says, hey, that’s the ticket.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it’s tickety-boo, but it’s one of those expressions that they sound like what they are, don’t you think?

Tickety-boo, it just sounds like things are sort of clickety-clacketing along, going really well, like copacetic.

But again, the influence of her having been an elementary school teacher is probably what colored my thinking on it, because it sounded rather whimsical as well.

I’m really surprised, though. The word is, it’s definitely an old-fashioned word.

I think most people would still understand it, but it’s definitely not current English.

Its heyday was the 1940s.

The first use that I know of is in 1938.

And it just exploded.

And suddenly you find a few months after the 1941, it is in absolutely every newspaper, like every single day, at least a few times, books and movies and articles.

And it’s just people are using it right and left.

And they burnt it out.

They overused it so much that they just stopped using it a few years later for the most part.

There was an incredible…

A little prior to my era, but not so far off that I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard it sooner.

Yeah, a lot of credit needs to be given to the British for influencing the Americans during World War II.

This was so widely used in the U.K., and then the Americans really became fascinated with a lot of the language that the British used, and this is one of the terms that they brought back.

I love the term as well, for the same reason that Martha said.

It’s fun to say, too.

Tickety-boo, tickety-boo, and it’s got its own melody built in.

Exactly.

That’s what I was trying to say.

Very lyrical.

So it’s all tickety-boo, right?

It truly can be.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for calling.

Thanks, Renee.

It was fun to talk about.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Was it tickety-boo?

Thank you so much.

You enjoy your program.

It’s all tickety-boo.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye now.

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