English
Phrase
whatever tickles your pickle
- Synonym of whatever floats your boat.
1995 March 3, Viet Dinh, “Vietisms: Everything You Wanted to Know about Sects but Were Afraid to Ask”, in Mark Binker, Johnny J. Wong, editors, The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, volume XCIX, number 18, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, →OCLC, page A14, columns 1–2:Give up chocolate, fine. Give up cholesterol, well, it’s better if you do that anyway. Give up whistling the national anthem while taking a shower, hey, whatever tickles your pickle. But give up sex? Let’s think about this.
2000 December, Alex Warren, “Samba de Amigo”, in Simon Phillips, editor, Dreamcast Magazine, number 16, Bournemouth, Dorset: Paragon Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 48, columns 2–3:Well, it’s hardly rocket science – just shake the maracas in time to the music, or at least the balls as they hit the circles, and hey presto! – you’re samba-ing. Shaking your arse is of course optional, as is wearing a poncho, sombrero and stupid moustache. Whatever tickles your pickle.
2006, Jeremy Iversen, “Two Weeks Go Deep”, in High School Confidential: Secrets of an Undercover Student, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, part 3, page 135:“You never struck me as a big birthday-party type,” she said. / “Yeah,” Thea said, “I know, but I used to have one every year back at CdM, and sixteen’s like a big birthday, you know?” / Evelyn ate a slice of home-dried kiwi. “Whatever tickles your pickle,” she said.
2008 April, Mark Pearson, chapter 22, in Hard Evidence (DI Jack Delaney; 1), London: Arrow Books, →ISBN, page 220:‘What are you going to do? Charge me with saving the girl’s life?’ / Hadden closed his notebook and stared at Delaney for a long, condescending moment. ‘We’ll let you know what we are going to charge you with when we decide.’ / ‘Whatever tickles your pickle, Richard.’
2008 May 14, Karan Bajaj, “It’s All a Waste”, in Keep off the Grass, New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers India; India Today Group, →ISBN, pages 15–16:Do what you feel like, and hope that it sticks. If it doesn’t, throw it again. Maybe it sticks the next time over. And if it doesn’t, who cares? It’s just one insignificant life wasted in the vast ocean of lives all around. Whatever floats your boat, whatever melts your butter, whatever humps your camel, whatever sizzles your bacon, whatever tickles your pickle…
2008 May 27, Meagan Brothers, “Attack of the Giant Ants”, in Debbie Harry Sings in French, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 196:“I’m not gay,” I said under my breath. / “Hey, whatever tickles your pickle, man. I don’t pass judgment. […]”