Have you ever wondered why 'make them wait' is associated with 58 or 'dancing queen' aligns with 17 when bingo numbers are called out?

There are dozens of these rhymes and themes with the popular game in the United Kingdom and it makes for intriguing reading understanding their origins.

Whether you bet on bingo online or in person, being familiar with the calls and their legacies can make you feel that much more involved in the game.

Did you know that the rhymes were originally used to send secret messages in the mid-20th century? They were then adopted by bingo players who used some of the terms and rhymes to ensure numbers such as 13 and 30 were not mixed up when called out.

Several of the calls we hear today - '1 - Kelly's eye'; '9 - doctor's orders'; and others - were introduced during wartimes, when bingo games were used as means of fundraising for the military.

Kelly's eye, out of interest, was a popular comic strip among soldiers. Number 9 was a colloquial term for a laxative doctors gave to soldiers. 

'52 - Danny La Rue' and '53 - Here comes Herbie/Stuck in a tree' effectively reference the growth in popularity of music and movies during wartimes.

Take a look at a few others in the teens: '13 - Unlucky for some'; '14 - Valentine's Day'; '15 - Young and keen'; '16 - Sweet 16 and never been kissed'; '17 - Dancing queen'; '18 - Coming of age'; and '19 - Goodbye teens'.

For 13, this of course references a number that some feel is unlucky. Foe 14, well, that's quite obviously touching on the international day of romance. For 17, the lyrics from a song from popular music group ABBA are right in play.

"You are the dancing queen. Young and sweet, only seventeen. Dancing queen. Feel the beat from the tambourine. Oh, yeah," they sang.

And check these out in the 20s: '21 - Royal salute/Key of the door'; '22 - Two little ducks'; '23 - Thee and me'; '24 - Two dozen'; '25 - Duck and dive'; '26 - Pick and mix'; '27 - Gateway to heaven'; '28 - In a state/Overweight'; and '29 - Rise and shine'.

While some are quite self-explanatory, perhaps you need to understand 21's reference a bit more. In a royal or military salute, 21 guns are fired. And, at 21 years old, used to be the age at which one traditionally moved out of their parent's house and got their own keys to their own home.

And here is what's happening in the bingo 30s: '31 - Get up and run'; '32 - Buckle my shoe '33 - Dirty knee/All the threes/Fish, chips and peas'; '34 - Ask for more'; '35 - Jump and jive'; '36 - Three dozen'; '37 - More than eleven'; '38 - Christmas cake'; and '39 - 39 steps'.

The last call in the 30s is derived from the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock movie - 39 Steps.

In closing, it's worth understanding the final bingo number - 90. This is usually called as '90 - Top of the shop/end of the line/as far as we go. Before it there is the self-explanatory '89 - Nearly there' and '88 - Two fat ladies', which is said to be a visual representation as 88 could, to some, look like to overweight women sitting next to each other.