Comments on: Like Sixty

By: Caleb_B

Caleb_B — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:01:03 +0000

In the 1925 Clara Bow film “The Plastic Age,” the phrase is used. While at a dance, a young man says to Bow’s date that he better go home if he wants to win the race next week. He responds: “I’ll win that race like sixty!”

By: Martin_G

Martin_G — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 01:28:10 +0000

I’m not sure the exact origin of the expression, but I know that in 1939 Betty Boop sang:
People look smart and nifty,
When wearing a rubber heel,
People can go like fifty,
So does an automobile!

By: admin

admin — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:33:33 +0000

I was 11, and I was a big Mickey Mantle fan. (It had to be partly because of his alliterative name.) For some reason I never cared for Roger Maris, maybe because, next to Mantle, he seemed a bit weedy.

I still wear a Yankees cap almost every day out here in rural Ohio. It helps ward off the bad mojo of the OSU Buckeyes fans, who find it very annoying for some reason.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:31:22 +0000

Some older NY Yankee fans might remember the 1961 season when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth’s single season record of 60 home runs. Toward the end of the season, The New York Daily News sports section published a statistical table every day showing how their HR totals compared through the same number of games played. That table was titled “Goin’ Like 60″. It was the first thing I looked at in the paper every morning that summer.
Great memories.
P.S. Mantle got injured toward the end of the year, Maris hit 61*. You could look it up.

By: Ju

Ju — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:58:32 +0000

Richard Feynman uses the phrase several times in “Surely you’re joking, Mr Feynman”:

“We were playing along, going like sixty, as our band started to pass in front of the hotel.”

“So I’m slicing beans one after the other – chig, chig, chig, chig, chig – and everybody’s
giving me the beans, and I’m going like sixty when the boss comes by and says, “What are you
doing?”"

By: Vaddy

Vaddy — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:21:26 +0000

“Forty forties” was used in old Russian to express a very big number.

By: Charles Wheaton

Charles Wheaton — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:49:33 +0000

On the “like forty” tack could the origin be linked to the fort in fortitude, fortify (or even fort!) implying strength and force? Sixty could still be inflation caused by conversion to a number.

Charles Wheaton, London

By: marc bratt

marc bratt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:06:34 +0000

Good research! You can find numerous examples of the phrase “…like sixty” in The Great Brain Series written by John D. Fitzgerald.

Ex. “Tom’s great brain was working like sixty.”