Friday, September 9, 2011

Firewater Friday . . . No one better lay a finger

Lollygag and dilly-dally . . . words I've always associated with slow-poking and procrastination.  And they sorta-kinda are . . . more like they evolved to mean.  But they actually have a different meaning that surprised me.  



It’s common practice to reduplicate words with slight variations to make up nonsense words; such as fuddy-duddy, willy-nilly, and of course dilly-dally.  The root of dilly-dally is dally which means to waste dawdle or toy with someone's affections.

Lolly-gagging originally described as openly flirtatious love sick couples. Eventually, flirting gave rise to the what is today the most common sense of the word, to dawdle or dally . . . dilly-dally

So a dilly-dallying lolly-gagger could possibly be a time wasting flirt outrageously displaying his affections.

Or perhaps one who slowly sticks their lolly too deep into their mouth and gags.  




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