Phrase Origins – Tickled Pink

I like English, literature and grammar. I always liked learning about idioms and phrases when I was in English class. However, I certainly never learned about all the phrases that are in common use and I still use some today that make me wonder about the origins of the phrases.

I like being happy. Is there anybody who truly doesn’t like being happy? I don’t think such a person exists. You can have all types of happiness. When somebody is truly happy, they are said to be “tickled pink.”

I have never understood this phrase, though I have even used it myself at times. Perhaps tickled makes sense because it makes people laugh, but why pink? You turn red if you laugh too much or start blushing and you turn red if you are scratched. Are people actually tickling somebody so much they are making the person’s skin raw and it is turning pink? It doesn’t seem like that would be a very happy situation.

Looking up information about the phrase, there is not much said about it other than the tickling mentioned is not actually the light touching of the skin that often causes a person to laugh or shy away from the tickling source.

Instead, the word tickling means “to give pleasure” or “gratify.”

There were many usages of the word “tickle” in this sense in literature. It was used as early as 1617 in Works by Samuel Hieron.

It seems it has appeared in at least one work each century since then.

There is no reference to why we are “tickled pink,” though. It just says that it is related to being “in the pink.” There may be there, but that is another phrase to research at another time.

However, the phrase was definitely known by 1910, as it appeared in The Daily Review, an Illinois newspaper. It was not used much before then, though.

Source:
Martin, Gary. “Tickled Pink”. The Phrase Finder. February 5, 2010 http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/tickled-pink.html>.