Lickety-split

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Dr. Goodword
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Lickety-split

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:38 pm

• lickety-split •

Pronunciation: li-ki-ti-splitHear it!

Part of Speech: Adverb

Meaning: Extremely fast or quickly.

Notes: Lickety-split has a substantial if rather queer family of relatives. To cut quickly across the lawn is to run lickety-cut, fast horses run lickety-click on a hard surface, and a car might go lickety-smash into a tree if the driver were not careful. Lickety is used almost as a prefix in English, though we tend to hear it mostly in lickety-split.

In Play: Any sudden, fast motion qualifies for lickety-split: "William Arami leapt from his chair and ran lickety-split down the hall when he saw Marian Kine pass by." However, the motion need not be pedestrian or vehicular: "Imogene, would you write up an innocent explanation of our CEO's arrest and get it out over the wires lickety-split? Thanks."

Word History: The first component of this funny word comes from a slang use of the word lick in the sense of "to run or move very fast": "Harley's wheels licked down the road like a bolt of lightning." When combined with other verbs, however, it not only converts them to adverbs, but extends itself to lickety. This is probably the result of adding the common suffix -y to the phrase lick it, as 'to lick it out of the massage parlor as fast as you can'. Lick itself has relatives throughout the Indo-European languages with and without the Fickle N often found in Latin but not in Germanic languages. In Latin we find lingere "to lick" and lingua "tongue," which led to language and linguistics, both borrowed from French. English also borrowed lecher from French, a word related in ways I hope I needn't explain.
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Perry Lassiter
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Re: Lickety-split

Postby Perry Lassiter » Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:27 pm

Lickety-split is the only term mentioned above that I have ever heard. Nor have I heard lick used foranything else than whatyou dotoa lolly pop. As a noun we have salt licks and that's about it. Had no idea the other occurenced existed.
pl

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Re: Lickety-split

Postby Philip Hudson » Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:01 am

Well, I'll swanny, Perry, didn't you ever get a licking from the schoolmarm. Being the bad kid I was, I got many a licking, that is spankings, the application of the board of education to the posterior.
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Re: Lickety-split

Postby Slava » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:20 am

There is also that little fillip of hair, the cow lick.
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Re: Lickety-split

Postby Perry Lassiter » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:18 am

Yup to both. Thanks for bringing them to mind.
Now what about people who are too persnickity?
And what's the kids series about someone -ickity?
pl


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