‘tickety-boo’: meaning, early occurrences and origin

3rd Nov 2020.Reading time 14 minutes.

UK, 1938—old-fashioned informal British-English adjective meaning ‘in good order’, ‘fine’—origin obscure: perhaps from Hindi ‘ṭhīk hai’ (‘all right’) or from ‘the ticket’ (‘the correct thing’); or it may simply be a purely fanciful formation

origin of ‘to drop a clanger’ (to make an absurd or embarrassing blunder)

5th Sep 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

British Army slang, 1945—the image is of something dropping with a clang, i.e. with a loud resonant ringing sound.

Anglo-Indian origin of ‘loot’ (goods stolen in war)

16th Feb 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

UK, early 19th century—private property taken from an enemy in war—originally an Anglo-Indian noun, from Hindi ‘lūṭ’, from Sanskrit ‘luṇṭh-‘, ‘to rob’—came to be also used as slang for ‘money’ and to also denote ‘wedding presents’

the authentic origin of ‘doolally’

5th Apr 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

Four’s a Crowd.—A merry, irresponsible farce that dips frequently into pure crazy comedy. For this they have chosen to give Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland a “break” from their usual story book hero and heroine types. These two lovely young people do very well, but I cannot think that crazy comedy suits them best. […]