Someone mentioned the phrase 'tickety-boo' to me yesterday. It means 'in good or satisfactory order' and is the sort of phrase one associates with the 1920s upper-class set, who might equally say "Anyone for tennis?". The first written recorded instance of the word, however, is only 1939. The OED says that the origin is uncertain, but it is likely that it comes from the Hindi ṭhīk hai, meaning 'all right'. One or two of the OED's citations support this thesis, eg:
1947 Amer. N. & Q. Sept. 94/1 Lord Mountbatten, now Governor General of India, is credited in the New York Times Magazine (June 22, 1947, p. 45) with ‘giving currency’ to the phrase ‘tickety-boo’ (or ‘tiggerty-boo’). This Royal Navy term for ‘okay’ is derived from the Hindustani.
and
1981 S. Rushdie Midnight's Children i. 97 Everything's in fine fettle, don't you agree? Tickety-boo, we used to say.
There is also the phrase 'that's the ticket', with a similar meaning. This phrase is earlier - there are citations going back to the 1830s. There is no mention of Hindi at this entry; the OED thinks 'ticket' might have come from the political sense of 'ticket', meaning list of candidates, or possibly from the idea of a winning lottery ticket.
Comments