Tick a lock

February 23rd, 2013 by admin

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Posted in columns, February 2013 | 2 comments

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2 comments on this post.

  1. Wayne:

    February 23rd, 2013 at 6:45 pm

    Recently had a discussion with old friends about some of the words we used as kids in the 1950′s growing up in New Zealand. “Tick a lock” came up and our use of it as 5-8 year olds was a promise not to cheat in “hide and seek”, you know, start searching for the others before the counting finished or “tag” somebody before they had a chance to get away in a game of, well, tag!
    As New Zealand was a very “English” country, I can only assume that these terms came from England, where most of the people who settled there, came from.
    Another word we used at the time in these games was “paxed”. This word meant, using a modern term, “time out” or “I’m not playing at the moment, pick some one else”.
    Thank you for providing an interesting web site. I hope my thoughts on these old words helps somebody.

  2. Bevan:

    February 27th, 2013 at 1:06 am

    “Paxed” is cool. IIRC it comes from the old habit of forcing young schoolchildren to learn Latin, in which “Pax” (see also “Pax Romana”) means “Peace” in the sense of “Cessation of Hostilities”.

    It was in print in this sense at least as far back as Kipling’s “Stalky & Co.”, where the children would call out “Pax! Pax! Make it Pax!” while being tortured or otherwise put upon.

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