“Dilly-dilly” dates back farther than a recent beer commercial
Your Friday wire-service article about the sudden popularity of “dilly dilly” attributes the phrase to a young ad writer developing a beer commercial. Actually, this phrase arose in an 18th-century British nursery rhyme. Burl Ives raised it to new prominence in a 1949 Disney movie with the song “Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly),” which was nominated for an Academy Award, and which my wife, Kathy, instantly recognized as the source of the phrase. Perhaps the ad writer’s mother sang it to him.
Once again, those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.
