No one skedaddles anymore

You never hear anyone use the word "skedaddle" anymore. I use it on occasion, but very rare occasions. There isn't necessarily a serious need to use the word. To skedaddle means "to leave hastily; flee" so unless you're on the lam from the coppers when hear a siren in the distance and you turn to your partner in crime to say, "Jiggers! It's the cops! We'd better skedaddle!" you just aren't going to use the word all that often.

The word has been around in literature since the time of the Civil War, although not in anything I've ever read or heard. "But Rhett, where will I skedaddle to?" "Frankly my dear..." Nope, didn't happen. Skedaddle perhaps wasn't a word with the proper gravitas.

Certainly there are times in modern culture when the word could have been used. I'm sure Lynyrd Skynyrd could have snuck the word into their song "Gimme Three Steps," about a man who need to hastily flee another man with a gun. "Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister/I'll skedaddle out that door/Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister/And you'll never see me no more." See? I think it could have worked, although the double negative in "never see me no more" troubles me.

Surely, there are times in our lives when you may feel the need to skedaddle, even if there isn't a man pointing a firearm at you. You may be running late to a show when you say to your spouse, "We'd better skedaddle or we won't catch those twenty minutes of previews before the movie." Or, "Your mother's coming over for dinner? I'd better skedaddle!" Or even, "Let's skedaddle to the restaurant. I'm starving!"

So there are indeed ways we can revive the word skedaddle. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've had a lot of coffee today, I need to skedaddle to the bathroom.