Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Shilly-shally

 

If we lived in the year 1882, could we shilly-shally? Or, if we had to be historically accurate, would we have to dawdle, dally, hesitate, or vacillate instead? (All of which are perfectly good synonyms, by the way.)

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According to The Phrase Finder, we'd be good to go. The term was out and about by 1700 in the form of shill-I shall-I. For those scratching their heads, the phrase's form reflects the question: "Shall I?" Shill-I was added for effect, in a process dubbed reduplication in linguistics, in which the root of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. (Another example of reduplication in action is the phrase heebie-jeebies.)

For first appearance in written form, The Phrase Finder points to this bit of dialogue from William Congreve's 1700 play The Way of the World:

I am somewhat dainty in making a resolution, because when I make it I keep it. I don't stand shill I, shall I, then; if I say't, I'll do't. 

This is no time to shilly-shally.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay