Made a ricket

Posted by Graham Cambray on March 01, 2009 at 23:53

In Reply to: Made a ricket posted by Chris on March 01, 2009 at 19:02:

: Can anyone tell me where the saying "made a ricket" originates from?

Not yet. I can only get so far.

There are entries in The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English for:
Ricket, noun - A mistake (UK)
First recorded use: "It's in the law of averages that if you are chopping all day you must at some time make a ricket and chop your hand or something." -Frank Norman, Bang to Rights, p. 29. 1958; and the more recent:
Drop a ricket - To make a mistake (UK)
First recorded use: "I'd dropped a ricket on tape" - Lenny McLean, The Guv'nor., p. 188. 1998.

www.doubletongued.org/ index.php/citations/ricket_1/ cites the Oxford English Dictionary as defining it as criminals' slang (meaning "a blunder, mistake."), again from 1958.
Leg before wicket is London Cockney rhyming slang for a major mistake (ricket) [and also for "ticket"]
Raffle ticket is London Cockney rhyming slang for a mistake (ricket).
So it looks like "ricket" came first, and the rhyming slang after.

I'll leave this for a couple of days, and come back to it if nobody else has got an origin.

Sorry not to have got any further. (GC)