When everything is all going to plan I am prone to say, "Everything is tickitty (sp??) boo".

Anybody know where I may have picked this up? Darned if I do - been with me for many years.

stales

Use it myself all the time - when in print use 'ticketty' as spelling, with no authority whatsoever. I've always assumed that it was service slang (particularly the RAAF) - but may pre-date WWII.

it's not used in the US that I'm aware of, but I can provide this:

tickety-boo - colloq.

[Etym. obscure: perh. f. Hindi thik hai all right; cf. also ticket n.1 9.]
In order, correct, satisfactory.

1939 N. Streatfeild Luke 186 Things ought to have shaped right.+ Couldn't have looked more tickety-boo. 1947 Amer. N. & Q. Sept. 94/1 Lord Mountbatten, now Governor General of India, is credited in the New York Times Magazine (June 22, 1947, p. 45) with ‘giving currency’ to the phrase ‘tickety-boo’ (or ‘tiggerty-boo’). This Royal Navy term for ‘okay’ is derived from the Hindustani. 1954 ‘G. Carr’ Death under Snowdon xi. 143 ‘All tiggity-boo.’ ‘TiggityI? Never mind, Sergeant. Go on.’ ‘Everything's jake, sir.’ 1957 J. Braine Room at Top xxi. 179 Everything was tickety-boo again. 1960 D. Fearon Murder-on-Thames xviii. 168 ‘I never killed Mr. Evans either’. ‘Then that's all ticketty-boo.’ 1977 Listener 7 Apr. 450/3 Attempting vainly to get everything tickety-boo for the Big Day. 1981 S. Rushdie Midnight's Children i. 97 Everything's in fine fettle, don't you agree? Tickety-boo, we used to say.


ticket - 9. slang. a. The correct thing; what is wanted, expected, or fashionable; esp. in phr. that's the ticket.

Thanks Tsuwm - doncha just hate those "obsc" etymologies!!

Am struggling with the derivation from the Hindi though. Having lived in Bombay/Mumbai, "Thik hai" was absorbed into the stales' family dialect years ago. We pronounce it "tee - khi" which is nothing like "tick-ett-ee". And whence the "boo"?

Like the idea of it being service slang.

stales

In reply to:
"Thik hai" was absorbed into the stales' family dialect years ago. We pronounce it "tee - khi" which is nothing like "tick-ett-ee". And whence the "boo"?
---
I asked my Pakistani neighbour and friend, Omar, who thinks "Tickety" could have come from "Theek hai ji" ji being a suffix for respect. He did not know where boo comes from.

tsuwm :
You've *got to visit New England!

I remember someone saying that "tickety-boo" came back to Zild from the sub-continent about the time of WWI. I always assumed that it was from some Indian (in the broader sense) dialect. But, illusions come and go!