[Ads-l] Antedating of "Tick-Tack-Toe"

Thu Jul 13 00:54:09 UTC 2023

This OED entry for " tit-tat-toe " is pertinent. Apologies for the
length of the excerpt, but it is needed for this topic.

[Begin excerpt]
tit-tat-toe, n.

A game associated with the recitation of a children's counting-out
rhyme beginning with the words ‘tit-tat-toe’ (see, e.g., quot. 1888);
spec.  (a) (now chiefly U.S.) a game in which two players seek to
complete a row of either three noughts or three crosses, each one
drawn alternately in the spaces of a grid of nine squares; = noughts
and crosses n.   (cf. tick-tack-toe n. b, tip-tap-toe n. at tip-tap
n.);  (b) a game played on an (esp. circular) grid divided into
numbered sections, in which players take turns at selecting sections
at random and adding the numbers of the sections selected to their
scores; = tick-tack-toe n. a.

1818   Academician 19 May 91/1   Checkers, fox and geese, tit-tat-to,
hop skip and jump, and a thousand other childish amusements.

1847   T. S. Millington Juvenile Excitem. To Young Rdrs.   In rainy
weather then, when ‘odd or even’, ‘tit-tat-toe’, ‘puss in the corner’,
and all other indoor amusements amuse no longer.

1856   Train Jan. 56   The peculiarities of ‘tit, tat, to’; the
desperate struggles to obtain a straight line of ‘oughts and crosses’.

1888   B. Lowsley Gloss. Berks. Words & Phrases 164   Tit-tat-toe, the
first game taught to children when they can use a slate pencil, the
words ‘Tit-tat-toe, My first go’, being said by the one who first
makes three crosses, or noughts in a row.

1909   Daily Chron. 22 July 7/1   Drawing to be diversified by noughts
and crosses and ‘tit tat toe’.

1923   E. Gepp Essex Dial. Dict. (ed. 2) 116   Tit-tat-to, a child's
game. A figure of concentric circles is numbered and dabbed at with
shut eyes.

1961   New Scientist 9 Nov. 367   Noughts and Crosses (known in
America as Tit-Tat-To).
[End excerpt]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 8:21 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The JL in 1879 is a typo.
>
> On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 8:19 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I've got some more, though it isn't quite clear which game is alluded to:
> >
> > 1879_ Chicago Tribune_ (Sept. 4) 5: Is one Nicholas Bramgan, recently
> > liberated from the Penitentiary at Joliet, in the employ of the city as
> > policeman or give-away, or is he simply playing a little game of "tick,
> > tack, toe," like Martin Flanagan?JL
> >
> > 1885 _St. Albans [Vt.] Daily Messenger_ (Feb. 28) 3: Even the teacher
> > will... take a slate and sit down wit [sic] a girl and play what is called
> > tick-tack-toe.
> >
> > It may be that "tic-tac-toe" began as a counting rhyme like
> > eeny-meeny-miny-mo:
> >
> > 1885 _Washington Standard_ (Olympia, Wash.) (Nov. 6) 1: Tic, tac, toe; let
> > the Chinese lepers go./...Get out of this, get out of that./ Tic-tac-toe.
> >
> > There's this:
> >
> > 1862 _Weekly Times (Burlington, Vt.) (Nov. 8) 7: NEW MUSIC.
> > Songs....Kingdom Coming (Negro melody)....Tick-Tack-Toe, - A song for the
> > times.
> >
> > And:
> >
> > 1874 _Manchester Guardian_  (March 6) 6: The children in [the painting]
> > "Tick! Tack! Toe!"...are just as bad.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 7:39 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> > adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Interesting topic, JL. Excellent lead, Fred.
> >> The phrase "Tic-tac-toe, three in a row" occurs below in 1878 (I
> >> think), but it is not clear whether it refers to the game of today.
> >>
> >> Part of the text is cut off in the scan.
> >>
> >> Date: 1878 October
> >> Periodical: New Dominion Monthly
> >> Published by John Dougall & Son, Montreal
> >> Section: Young Folks
> >> Article: A Life in the Stage: A Story for Boys
> >> Start Page 462, Quote Page 466, Column 2
> >>
> >>
> >> https://books.google.com/books?id=V685RfuwRmQC&q=%22Tic%2C+tac%22#v=snippet&
> >>
> >> [Begin excerpt - please double check text and date]
> >> But can this comfortable, ea...
> >> going man, who walks up to the v...
> >> andah and seating himself on the
> >> vacant chair says with a quiet laugh
> >> "Tic-tac-toe, three in a row--...
> >> this be our little thin, pale-faced S...
> >> [End excerpt]
> >>
> >> The cut-off words might be "easy" and veranda".
> >>
> >> Garson
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 7:03 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Correction: In the 1908 citation it is "tack" rather than "tock."
> >> >
> >> > Fred Shapiro
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > ________________________________
> >> > From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> >> > Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2023 7:01 PM
> >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> > Subject: Antedating of "Tick-Tack-Toe"
> >> >
> >> > tick-tack-toe (OED, b., 1960)
> >> >
> >> > 1895 _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ 10 Dec. 7/1 (Newspapers.com)  It was
> >> "tick, tack, toe, three in a row."
> >> >
> >> > 1908 _Cincinnati Enquirer_ 9 July 2/6 (Newspapers.com)  Up to the stage
> >> they went, tick, tock, toe, three in a row. like the figures we used to
> >> make on our slate when the teacher wasn't looking.
> >> >
> >> > Fred Shapiro
> >> >
> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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