Dave from Indianapolis asks about toodles, the informal goodbye he learned from his aunt and now uses despite raised eyebrows. The word is a shortened form of toodle-oo or toodaloo, and it has been around for more than a century as a form of leave-taking. A popular proposed link to French à tout à l’heure has only weak evidence. Stronger explanations connect it either to dialect toddle, “to amble” or “toddle off,” or to early printed imitations of an old bulb horn’s tootling sound. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Possible Origins of Toodles as a Casual Goodbye”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you? This is Dave from Indianapolis.
Welcome, Dave. What can we do for you?
What’s up, buddy?
I have a question for you about a word that I’ve been using. It’s the word toodles. I had an aunt that used it occasionally, and I’ve gotten to use it, and people just look at me like I’m crazy.
They do!
It’s kind of a see-you-later, a toodles, and I was just wondering what the background of that word is. Any idea where you picked it up? Besides your aunt? I mean, did anyone else say it? Was it a particular context?
No, she would say it occasionally, just occasionally when she was leaving, and, you know, until next time, kind of.
Was she American?
That’s the only place I’ve heard it, and I started using it with a lot of other people, and they just kind of look at me like I’m crazy.
Maybe they want you to stay longer.
Yeah, that’s it. That’d be great.
Dave, was she American? An American aunt?
Yes.
Okay. Huh. Do you use that, Martha? Toodles? To say goodbye?
No. I mean, it seems sort of, I don’t know. It does seem like the thing a great aunt would say.
Maybe.
Yeah, maybe a great aunt from Britain.
Yeah. Do you ever say a longer form toodaloo?
Well, occasionally she would say toodaloo.
Okay. But usually it was just, you know, the shortened form, toodles.
So, Dave, none of your friends are picking this up?
No, but my family, well, some of them are.
Well, they are. And my boys, who are both in college, will often, when they’re leaving, will say, okay, toodles. And other people just roll their eyes at me.
Are they real big, burly guys?
Pretty much so.
Okay. Even better. That’s even better.
Yeah, because it’s marked, when I hear it, I think of it as being mainly a feminine use.
Yeah, or maybe Casper Milk Toast or somebody.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so… I’m going to have to stop using it then.
No!
Go for it.
No, no. Cognitive dissonance is fun.
Yes, you’ve got to prize those moments when the people around you are befuddled and you are perfectly in your right to say a word.
Yes. That’s what makes it so much fun.
Exactly. We don’t know how to respond sometimes.
So toodles, it’s either T-O-T-T-L-E-S or T-O-O-D-L-E-S. It’s a shortened form of toodle-oo with both spellings, and there are a variety of other variations on this as well.
And there’s three prevailing theories about the origin. The first one we’ll dismiss right away because there’s no evidence to support it, and that it comes from the French for a tout à l’heure.
A tout à l’heure. See you later.
Yeah, at a later hour basically is what it means. The second origin is far more likely, and this is that it comes from dialect, an English dialect word, toddle, meaning to walk or to amble or to move at a leisurely pace.
And the reason this is more likely is because we have tons of written citations for this throughout the centuries of people using this in leave-taking. That’s the jargon we use when we study conversation. Leave-taking is this particular kind of human way that we bid each other adieu. And we’re very kind of programmatic about it. You say X and I say Y and you say Z and then we leave.
And so toddle off or toddle off, toddle on. You know, we have this particular history, particularly among the Scots, to use that.
Like toddler then.
Yeah, like toddler, but it doesn’t suggest that you’re moving in a childlike way exactly. It just might mean you’re going to mosey along.
So that’s a really strong theory because we’ve got written evidence and we can see the transformation and we can see the pronunciation change in the variety of spellings that we have. So that’s really important when we’re studying the history of a word.
And then the other one is that it might come from the sound of a car horn. And it’s no coincidence that toodle-oo starts to appear about the time the automobile becomes far more common. And you see it appear in writing. And toodle is a way that the car horn has been represented in print a lot, particularly in the early days when the car horn was exterior and it was this mechanical thing where you pressed the bulb and it made the toodle-oo, something like that.
Right.
That’s better than a-oo-go-oo.
I like that, yeah. Imagine if that were the word. I’ll a-oo-go you later.
Then you’d really get crazy looks.
So it’s very appropriate to use it as a departure comment.
Yeah, so it’s totally appropriate for you to use it. It’s legitimate English. It’s got a long history of more than 100 years. You’re good to go on it, except it’s a little okay.
I even use it at the end of an email. I’ll put toodles.
It’s a little okay. It’s incredibly informal.
Okay, so you’re that guy. You’re that toodles guy.
I am.
Okay, all right. With guiltiest jars. When you’re writing a letter to your bank, I don’t recommend that as a closing.
I do. It’ll get their attention.
It does. It gets everybody’s attention. It’s great.
Well, Dave, we have to say goodbye to you. Ta-ta for now.
Yeah. I’m trembling with anticipation.
Thank you for the information.
Pip-pip, Dave.
Thanks.
All right. Toodles.
Bye-bye.
That’s what I was waiting for.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
All right. Take care now.
