Sleep tight & other queries

[MVSCHNUR]

At 08:19 PM 2/15/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear all:
>
>How do you account for the expression “sleep tight ­ don't let the
>bedbugs bite,” from an etymological/contextual point of view? Do you
>think it is as frequent now as it was ten or twenty years ago?
>I managed to find only the following on the Net:
>
>“It's the bats that keep me awake  Dear Evan: A fellow member of the
>Copyediting Digest steered me to your web site when I queried my
>cohorts about the origin of "sleep tight." I've looked in several
>sources and the best I found was a children's nursery rhyme or song
>that included the line "Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite."
>I'd appreciate any insight you might have on this phrase. -- Julia
>DeGraf, Evanston, IL.
>
>   Bed bugs? Not in my house. When I was growing up, my parents used to
>tuck us away with "Sleep tight and don't let the IRS bite." Granted, it
>doesn't fit as well as "bedbugs," but it made more sense in our house
>and turned out to be sound advice for later life. According to
>etymologist Eric Partridge, the catch phrase "sleep tight and don't let
>the bedbugs bite" is the American version of a British "children's
>goodnight" which differs only in that it specifies "fleas" as the
>critters to be avoided. Partridge traced the phrase back to the late
>19th or early 20th century, although he speculates that it may actually
>be much older, since, he notes, "This is the type of phrase that ...
>escapes the attention of lexicographers, even light-hearted ones."
>As to where "sleep tight" itself came from, the Oxford English
>Dictionary lists "tight" in this sense as a form of the
>adverb "tightly," meaning "soundly." Although this "tight" could once
>be applied to anything done thoroughly, the OED notes that the only
>modern usage is in the phrase "sleep tight."  As a former child myself,
>I cannot fail to note the double-edged quality of "sleep tight and
>don't let the bedbugs bite" as a bedtime farewell. No one I've ever met
>sleeps soundly after having been reminded of bedbugs. I submit that the
>phrase is, in fact, probably the diabolical invention of a child, and
>(judging by my personal experience), most likely an older sister.”
>URL: <http://www.word-detective.com/back-b2.html>"

When I was a kid in England in boarding school in W.W. II Matron used to
tuck us in bed with fake Chinese -

"Nightee, nightee, sleepee tightee, don't ee let 'em fleasee bitee."  (No
PC in those days!)