"Suit to a t-y-t" (and similiar)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Quick glance through the newspaper archives (1800-1929) shows me a
number of synonyms for "T" (as in "suits me to a T" etc.).
(Newspaperarchive has been misbehaving more than usual for me lately BTW.)

There is "T" itself.

T
tee

There is the even older (and likely ancestral, some say) "tittle", along
with other words compatible with a sense of "small written feature".

tittle
dot
hair
scribe
notch
letter
turn

Of these, "dot" was apparently very frequent. I didn't see "jot".

There are different ways of writing "TYT".

TYT
tyt
t-y-ty
t-y-t
ty-T
T-y-t
T-Y-tee

I did not see any spelled with "whitie", "whitey", "why", etc., in this
brief look-see. (I think the "witch"/"which" merger was much less
prevalent back when.)

There are a few others.

marvel
charm
nicety

"Nicety" might be equated to "nice T": is it just a coincidence? (I see
this similarity used for an outright pun in 1900.)

The instance in the James Whitcomb Riley poem shows last-syllable stress
(t y TEE). This poem ("Tradin' Joe") dates from 1874, apparently,
although the earliest text I've seen is from 1893.

-- Doug Wilson

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