As I was thinking of nursery rhymes to read to my baby, this thought ocurred to me…
Is there any meaning to the words “A tisket a tasket”? I tried to look tisket and tasket up in the dictionary and neither were listed. Are these just ridiculous words to rhyme w/ basket, or was there ever such a thing as a tisket or a tasket?
I couldn’t find anything, except you can get “A Tisket, A Tasket” at Walmart.
The OED online doesn’t have an entry for either, but a full text search came up with this:
All the other cites I found indicated that the phrase originated in a nursery rhyme or folk song, but maybe the rhyme is taken from an earlier lost source.
Evidently, though, the words were made up for their sounds not their meaning.
Good question.
That is so weird; I was playing a CD of nursery rhymes in the car yesterday (for my kids) and I was about to start a thread asking exactly the same question.