La-di-da

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on April 24, 2009 at 13:43

In Reply to: La-di-da posted by Jeff Duncan on April 24, 2009 at 08:53:

: Where did the phrase "La Di Da" come from? I always thought it originated in 1887 when a 15yr old English girl named "Lottie Dod" won the Ladies' Singles Championship, becoming the youngest (male or female) Wimbledon champion ever. And from her name the phrase evolved into "La Di Da".

: Example: If someone came up to you and told you "Guess what? I just found $20 on the ground!" A persons reply could be "well La Di Da, aren't you special".

The phrase long pre-dates Lottie Dodd. It's an imitation of the accent of "swells" and "toffs"; anybody talking in an affected, genteel way could be accused of sounding "la-di-da". An older form, dating back to at least 1861, was "lardy-dardy", but according to the Oxford English Dictionary a popular comic song of 1880 used the form "la-di-da" as a refrain, which probably helped fix it as the normal one. (I've never heard the phrase used as in your example; but here in London anybody showing off might get the response "Ooh, listen to Lady Muck!" which contains a similar idea.) (VSD)