# Jeet your seat **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565 "2006-01-18T22:37:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/1 "2006-01-18T22:37:01Z")
I think I read this in a Ray Bradbury story a couple of decades ago. In it, a robot that had gone off its programming said ‘So, jeet your seat. All reet, all reet!’ What does the phrase mean? ‘All reet’ is obviously a ‘hipster’ way of saying ‘all right’. But what about ‘jeet’? Since Bradbury’s stories seem to have an early-20th Century flavour (for example, he uses imagery from pre-WWI Middle America – like Ohio – or from the Depression era), I wonder if ‘jeet’ may derive from the jitterbug dance. I don’t know the dance, but I’m under the impression that it was lively. So ‘jitterbug your seat’ would mean ‘move your seat’ (‘Move!’, ‘Get up and dance!’), ‘jeet’ may be a rhyming way of shortening ‘jitterbug’ to ‘jit’. But that’s speculation on my part. What is the origin of ‘jeet your seat’? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/2 "2006-01-18T22:49:13Z")
[ > [@](#): > > Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit” is a natural prototype, using the now-familiar Hollywood trope of a serial killer moving from city to city (probably a lot more shocking in '54), the twist(s) being that the killer(s) are an android and his human master who have become so psychically entwined that the reader is never entirely sure who’s doing the butchering. Whenever the artificial human starts to go funny he sings a tune from the turn of the last century (“Oh it’s no feat to beat the heat. All reet! All reet! So jeet your seat/Be fleet be fleet/Cool and discreet/Honey…”) Very creepy, but definitely all reet. ]([http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?32189](http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?32189))… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/3 "2006-01-18T22:55:56Z")
The link didn’t work for me. (Or else I was impatient.) So where did the song get the phrase? ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/4 "2006-01-18T22:59:21Z")
No definitive answer, but to me, it really sounds like references to[The Zoot Suit Era.](http://www.bookrags.com/history/popculture/zoot-suit-bbbb-03/) I was NOT alive during that era, but I do remember reading the story you referenced and it sure reminded me of stuff I’d read about that time. Yeah, gimme a zoot suit with a reet pleat! ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/5 "2006-01-18T23:49:14Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > The link didn’t work for me. (Or else I was impatient.) So where did the song get the phrase? Ignore the link(it’s just a blog, I’m in the habit of always citing my quotes). Couldn’t find a damn thing, but Bester was born in NYC in 1913, so I think **LiveOnAPlane** is probably on the right track, it’s either from an obscure jazz song from the 30’s/40’s or Alfie just used the zoot suit/jazz vernacular and made it up. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/6 "2006-01-18T23:59:28Z")
Agreed. I could find nothing else, either. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/7 "2006-01-19T15:42:12Z")
So jeet = jit = jitterbug = move is plausible? ---
**Author:** ![Daithi\_Lacha](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daithi_lacha/32/5430_2.png) [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/8 "2006-01-19T15:58:07Z")
It’s entirely possible that it means absolutely nothing, no more than the “reat” (or “reet”) in “reat pleat.” It rhymes, it lends cadence; it could be taken as a sort of spoken “scat.” ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/9 "2006-01-19T20:05:51Z")
> [@Daithi Lacha](#): > > It’s entirely possible that it means absolutely nothing, no more than the “reat” (or “reet”) in “reat pleat.” It rhymes, it lends cadence; it could be taken as a sort of spoken “scat.” \*\* reet \*\* “good, proper, excellent,” 1934, jazz slang, from Amer.Eng. dial. pronunciation of right (adj.). From [here](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=reet) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/10 "2006-01-19T20:12:42Z")
> [@groman](#): > > \*\* > reet \*\* > > “good, proper, excellent,” 1934, jazz slang, from Amer.Eng. dial. pronunciation of right (adj.). > > From [here](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=reet) All reet! 🙂 Pity, ‘jeet’ wasn’t listed there. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeet-your-seat/340565/11 "2006-01-19T21:38:11Z")
Given Bester’s level of creativity, I would think it highly likely he wrote it himself.