Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"

[Wilson Gray]

My goodness, Amy! How old are you? I first heard "okey-doke(y)" used
by my mother, now 96, and her friends in the late 'Thirties!

The expression was so popular that, in the "Forties, there was even an
in-the-days-of-knights comic-book character named "Sir Oakey Doakes."
Before that, Edgar Bergen's hick dummy, Mortimer Snerd, used
"Okey-dokey!" as a catch-phrase.

Mortimer:
"How can you tell the difference between a Cadillac and a Cadiddlac?"

Edgar:
"How?"

Mortimer:
"By the "diddle" in the middle!

-Wilson

On 1/24/08, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That sense is new to me, but that ain't saying much. I use
> "okey-dokey" for "OK", and get some giggles when I do. I always learn
> stuff here.
>
> ---Amy West
>
> And any work by Arnold that is dismissed by others as "merely
> descriptive" is still tons more illuminating to me than analytical
> works by others.
>
> >Date:    Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:20:55 -0500
> >From:    Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> >Subject: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"
> >
> >From Sumter, SC...
> >
> >---
> >http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/when_obama_call.html
> >  Obama used the friendly setting to urge voters not to be fooled by
> >what he said were untruths coming from Hillary Clinton's campaign.
> >"They're trying to bamboozle you. It's the same old okey-doke," he
> >said, using a slang phrase for a con. "Y'all know about okey-doke,
> >right? It's the same old stuff."
> >---
> >
> >--Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>


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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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