Ta-da!

[Landau, James]

A coworker of mine speculates that "Ta-da!", an expression used by
magicians about to reveal the end-results of a trick (as opposed to
"hocus-pocus", used to initiate the audience's perception of a trick),
is from the Hebrew "toda" (thank you) or "toda raba" (great thanks).  He
points out that many vaudeville performers were Jewish and therefore
familiar with at least a few words of Hebrew.

Any comments?

         - James A. Landau

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