diggety/diggity dong/dog

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 9:46 AM, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>
> OED's Word of the day: hot diggety dog 1923.
>
> ADS Dialect Notes 5.7 (1924) "Exclamations in American English" p. 270:
>
> Hot:....--Diggety-dong (joy: Penn), --ziggety damn (surp. com.) --dog (joy:
> com., approv.: Maine [etc.]

Back in '05 I gave some earlier examples with the spelling "hot diggedy dog":

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0502D&L=ADS-L&P=R1093

-----
Atlanta Constitution, Nov 16, 1921, p. 8, col. 8
Bits of New York Life, by O.O. M'Intyre
As Walter Catlett chirps 'Hot-diggedy-dog!'
-----
Atlanta Constitution, Sep 12, 1922, p. 6, col. 4
Bits of Paris Life, by O.O. M'Intyre
And the Americans responded with "Hot--diggedy--dog" -- a phrase that has
been popularized here and amuses the Frenchmen.
-----

The OED entry was updated in Sept. '08 but missed these.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org