Book It! Leaving In A Hurry

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Well, yes, I do.

He’s been waiting a long time to say that.

Obviously.

Hi, who are you? Where are you calling from?

My name is Matthew. I’m calling from Vermont.

What’s on your mind today? What are you thinking about?

Well, you know, when I was growing up in Vermont, central Vermont, we had a term we would say, book it, which meant to move at a rapid pace from point A to point B, sometimes across town or down the street or whatever. So we would say, we got to book it over to Rick’s house or book it over to the park or something of that nature. Well, I always found that interesting because it’s not like a book or book somebody into jail. It just meant to move at a rapid pace from one place to another.

About when would that be? About what decade?

Yeah, this was back in the 70s, mid-70s.

Yeah, that actually sounds just about right for Book It. You know, I’ve been trying to put together the pieces for this particular bit of slang for a while, and I have some notes that I’ve put together because I’ve got a theory that I haven’t proven yet, but let me just lay this out for you and everyone else and see what you think. As far back as the 1860s, there were a couple of different terms that were used to imitate the sound of running feet or hooves, especially if they were going fast. And they’re bookety-book or bookety-bookety.

Yeah. So you might say someone is running bookety-book or a cowboy is riding bookety-book or a quarterback went bookety-book toward the field goal or a deer was fleeing bookety-book from the dog, something like that. And particularly in the South and states like Tennessee and Virginia, and in the last century or so, it was particularly common among speakers of African American English, including in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s. So it has a long history, this bookity book. And it’s imitative, obviously. It’s like the sound of feet running, right? Or the sound of hooves against the ground.

So hang on to that for a second. In the early 1920s, there was a boogie among Black Americans, meaning to party or have a good time with drinking and dancing. And there was also a noun boogie, which was the same, a party where you did all those things. And by the 1940s, that word boogie could also just mean dance fast to strong rhythmic music. And the 40s are also when boogie came to mean to leave or move in a hurry. And here’s one of your connections, right? So we got a boogie, we got to get out of here.

And then here’s the third connection. In the 1950s, the Korean War brings home the term bug out, which means to leave in a hurry, flee, or just leave in an ordinary way. And by the 1960s, it was sometimes shortened to bug. The party was a dud, so we just bugged. So in the late 1960s and the 1970s, my hypothesis is, and I haven’t proven it yet, is when they all come together and we find the first written records of book it, meaning to move quickly or leave quickly.

And it continued for a while. The slang popularity of book it has waned. You’ll still find it here and there. But this heyday was pretty much the 70s and the 80s.

So my theory is that the bookity, bookity and boogie, meaning to leave or move in a hurry and to bug out all kind of come together and book it. Because you will often find that slang terms will, I think I’ve used this term already, cross-pollinate. They’ll lend a little bit of their meaning and sense to each other, particularly if they share common sounds.

Wow. That is fascinating. So you’re actually boogieing across town instead of booking across town.

Yeah. You could see how boogie and book it. Like, there’s a lot of simulators there. And G and K do sometimes swap in the mouth.

Interesting. That’s fascinating.

Thanks for the question. Really appreciate it. Take care.

All right. I got to book it now.

Thanks, Matthew.

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