Chrysti The Wordsmith: Skedaddle - 3

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Recently on the series we've been looking at skedaddle a frisky American verb that means more or less to go away to run off to depart hastily skedaddle. No one has been able to identify the origin of this slang a verb during the Civil War it referred to soldiers fleeing the battlefield and from there quickly gained purchase in a civilian context. America's first lexicographer Noah Webster wrote in 1864. That's good battle quote is said to be of Swedish and Danish origin but no such word actually exists in either of those two languages in 1874 British scholar John Hutton thought that he could trace skedaddle to the Greek verb skid down to retire tumultuously. But no one else liked his theory so it's been abandoned. Other word watchers have considered the Scots dialectal verb skittle S K I D d l e to be the source of skedaddle skittle means to spill or scatter or to splash a liquid such as water or milk. British

lexicographer Jonathan Green editor of the dictionary of slang suggests skittle became skedaddle during the Civil War through quote the image of blood and corpses being thus spilled and scattered on the battlefield before the flight of a demoralized army. If you've ever wondered how to write this word it's official spelling is s k e d a d d l e skedaddle. I'm Christi the wordsmith Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry Web dot com.