[Ads-l] 23-Skidoo

[Peter Reitan]

Most of the earliest examples I could find relate to fast moving boats and cars.

"Skidoo" was the name of a racing sailboat that raced on Long Island Sound as early as 1901.

A. F. Aldridge, The Yachting Record: Summaries of All Races
Sailed on New York Harbor, Long Island Sound and Off Newport in 1901, New
York, Thomson and Company, page 16 (Indian Harbor Yacht Club, Spring Race,
Thursday, May 30, 1901).

"Skidoo," in the sense of "leave quickly," appears as early as 1904 (The Evening World (New York), April 18 1904, page 10).

"Skidoo wagon" (The Evening World, May 11, 1904, Final Results Edition, page 14), "Skidoodle wagon" (The St. Louis Republic, July 25, 1904, page 6, column 6), and "Skedaddle wagon" (Saint Paul Globe, November 27, 1904, page 5, column 6) were slang terms for automobiles in 1904.

I have a collection of citations and examples for "skidoo," "twenty-three," and "twenty-three, skidoo!" in my blog post:

http://esnpc.blogspot.com/2015/02/skedaddle-skidoodle-skidoo-vanishing.html
Barry Popik found "Twenty-three" in March 1899 (The Morning
Herald (Lexington, Kentucky), March 17, 1899, page 4) and "23-skidoo" in the title of a Vaudeville song in April 1906 (New York Clipper, Volume 4, Number 9, April 21, 1906, page 258).  Twenty-three and skidoo had been used in association with each other before April 1906, but not in the now-familiar format.

Surprisingly, perhaps, "twenty-three" may be a reference to the last scene in A Tale of Two Cities.

> Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:22:43 -0500
> From: wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: 23-Skidoo
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 23-Skidoo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> HDAS found no evidence of "skidoo" prior to ca.1904.
> 
> I suspect the phrase came from the vaudeville stage.
> 
> JL
> 
> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:
> 
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: 23-Skidoo
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > This seems to be a combination of several plays that originally were
> > publis=
> > hed separately.  For the play that uses "skidoo," the copyright date is
> > 190=
> > 9.
> >
> >
> > John Baker
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> > Of=
> >  Peter Morris
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 11:23 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: 23-Skidoo
> >
> > Okay, thanks for the information. It's a piece of uinlikely=20
> > folk etymology. No help there.=20
> >
> > However, here is a use of Skidoo in a play dated 1807.=20
> > And that's a new edition - perhaps it was also in the older=20
> > editions. First published 1759.
> >
> > "The fat's in the fire, right enough. Skidoo for me"
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/zbr3n3x
> >
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> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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