diggety/diggity dong/dog

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> 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.

And Barry Popik found a 1906 example of "hod diggetty" in Winsor
McCay's comic strip "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend":

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/hot_diggety_dog/

--bgz

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

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