ticktock

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> WTF does "ticktock(s)" mean, in this context?

Glossed by the NYT as "behind-the-scenes tales." So it sounds like
Summers is saying he doesn't kiss and tell.

For the more typical journalistic sense, see Wordspy:  "A news story
that recounts events in chronological order."

http://www.wordspy.com/words/tick-tock.asp


> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:15 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: ticktock
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:59 PM, George Thompson
>> <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> New York Times, February 19, 2009, section A, p. 21, profile of Lawrence Summers:
>>>
>>> As to whether he backed Mr. Geithner's decision to introduce the bank bailout plan before
>>> arriving at specifics, Mr. Summers, well schooled in Washington's ways, invoked newspaper
>>> slang for behind-the-scenes tales.
>>>
>>> "I just don't do ticktock," he said flatly.
>>>
>>> This sense is not in the OED nor in the 2005 edition of the Cassell Slang Dictionary.
>>
>> Cites back to 1973 in my post here:
>>
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506A&L=ADS-L&P=R458
>>
>> As Grant Barrett noted offlist, the Summers quote is a bit different,
>> since "ticktock" appears as a mass noun. I wonder if he actually said
>> "I just don't do ticktocks" and was misquoted?
>>
>>
>> --Ben Zimmer
>>
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