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The Thing-Ummy Bob

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1942 song

"It's a ticklish sort of job making a thing for a thing-ummy-bob,
Especially when you don't know what it's for.
But it's the girl that makes the thing that drills the hole that holds the ring
That makes the thing-ummy-bob that makes the engines roar.
And it's the girl that makes the thing that holds the oil that oils the ring
That makes the thing-ummy-bob that's going win the war.
It is 'n all."

"The Thing-ummy-Bob", a British song made popular by Gracie Fields

"The Thing-ummy-Bob " is a 1942 song, written by Barbara Gordon and Basil Thomas with music by David Heneker, which celebrates the female production-line workers of World War II making components for complex weapons to win the war. Its chorus is

I'm the girl that makes the thing
That drills the hole that holds the ring
That drives the rod that turns the knob
That works the thing-ummy-bob

A thingumabob or thingummy is an extended form of the word thing which the Oxford English Dictionary records being used as far back as 1751.

The song was popularized by performers Arthur Askey and Gracie Fields.

See also

References

  1. ^ Bush Jones, John (2006). The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939-1945. Brandeis University Press. ISBN 1584654430. (Google Books)
  2. Oxford English Dictionary, 2009
  3. Craig Gerrard (15 September 2004), The Foreign Office and Finland, 1938-1940, ISBN 9780203322765
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