“Lickety Split”

For the first time in my life, I used the phrase “lickity split” in an email a few minutes ago. I don’t know what my brain is thinking.

I couldn’t find anything on wikipedia on the term. I did find this response to somebody else wondering about the origin:

LICKETY-SPLIT – ” adv. 1859, American English, formed from earlier (1817) ‘lickitie’ very fast (irregular formation from ‘lick,’ n., used dialectally in the sense of fast) + split, n.”From “The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology” by Robert K. Barnhart (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1995). Another source gives a first use as 1831 and lists these variations: lickety-brindle, lickety-cut, lickety smash, lickity-switch, lickoty-liner, and so forth. “Dictionary of American Regional English,” Volume III by Frederic G. Cassidy (1996, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England).

I wonder how long I have had that phrase stuck in my brain waiting to be used?