A Word In Your Shell-Like

are you sitting comfortably? – then I’ll begin This was the customary way of beginning stories on BBC radio’s daily programme for small children, Listen with Mother. The phrase was used from the programme’s inception in January 1950. Julia Lang, the original presenter, recalled in 1982: ‘The first day it came out inadvertently. I just said it. The next day I didn’t. Then there was a flood of letters from children saying, “I couldn’t listen because I wasn’t ready”.’ It remained a more or less essential part of the proceedings until the programme ended in 1982. Sometimes Lang said, ‘…then we’ll begin.’ In the archive recording of 7 February 1950, Lang says, ‘Are you sitting quite comfortably, then I’ll begin.’ In the Times obituary (18 January 1988) of Frieda Fordham, an analytical psychologist, it was stated that she had actually coined the phrase when advising the BBC’s producers. From the same programme came the stock phrase and when it/the music stops, [Daphne Oxenford, or some other] will be here to tell you a story.

are you there, Moriarty? Name of a rather rough party game that has probably been played since the early 20th century, if not earlier. Why it is called this is not known, though perhaps it might have something to do with the evil ex-Professor James Moriarty, arch-enemy of Sherlock Holmes and the man who apparently killed him off. In the game, two blindfolded individuals lie on the floor, facing each other and holding left hand to left hand. In their free hands they hold rolled-up newspapers or magazines. One says, ‘Are you there, Moriarty?’ The other answers, ‘Yes’ or ‘I am here’, and the first then attempts to hit him on the head, if he can locate it. Obviously, the person about to be hit can attempt to move his head out of the line of fire. It takes all people…

‘arf a mo’, Kaiser! A 1915–16 recruiting poster during the First World War showed a British ‘Tommy’ lighting a pipe prior to going into action, with this caption underneath. The phrase caught on from there. A photograph of a handwritten sign from the start of the Second World War shows it declaring, ‘’Arf a mo, ‘itler!’ In 1939, there was also a short documentary produced by British Paramount News with the title ‘Arf a Mo’ Hitler.

Argentina See DON’T CRY.

arm See CHANCE ONE’S.

(to cost an) arm and a leg A measurement of (high) cost, as in ‘That’ll cost you an arm and a leg’. Probably of American origin, mid-20th century. Compare this with B. H. Malkin’s 1809 translation of Le Sage’s Gil Blas: ‘He was short in his reckoning by an arm and a leg.’

armed to the teeth Heavily armed, alluding to the fact that pirates are sometimes portrayed as carrying a knife or sabre held between the teeth. ‘Is there any reason why we should be armed to the teeth?’ – Richard Cobden, Speeches (1849); ‘Mujahedin…played a major role in bringing down the Shah and armed to the teeth’ – The Daily Telegraph (21 August 1979); ‘Once upon a time it would have been pirates fighting over buried treasure. Nowadays it’s redneck firemen (Bill Paxton and William Sadler) under siege from a posse of drug dealers (headed by rappers Ice T and Ice Cube) who are armed to the teeth with guns and mobile phones’ – The Sunday Telegraph (9 May 1993).

armpit See MAKES YOUR.

arms and the man The title of George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man (1894) comes from the first line of Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘Arma virumque cano [Of arms and the man, I sing]’ or rather from Dryden’s translation of the same: ‘Arms, and the man I sing.’ Earlier than Shaw, Thomas Carlyle, suggesting in Past and Present (1843) that a true modern epic was technological rather than military, had written: ‘For we are to bethink us that the Epic verily is not Arms and the Man, but Tools and the Man.’

(the) army game The Army Game was an immensely popular British TV comedy series (1957–62). Its title homed in on a phrase that seemed to sum up the attitude of those condemned to spend their lives in the ranks. Apparently of American origin, possibly by 1900, ‘it’s the old army game’ refers to the military system as it works to the disadvantage of those in the lower ranks. From Theodore Fredenburgh’s Soldiers March (1930): ‘I get the idea. It’s the old army game: first, pass the buck, second…’ The phrase also occurs in the film You Can’t Take It With You (US 1938). Compare war game (known by 1900), a theoretical way of fighting battles (and a type of chess). The War Game (1965) was the title of a TV film by Peter Watkins that was for a long time not shown because of its vivid depiction of the effect of nuclear war on the civilian population.

(the) arrogance of power The Arrogance of Power (1967) was the title of a book by the American Democratic politician J. William Fulbright. It questioned the basis of US foreign policy, particularly in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. In the previous year, Fulbright, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had given lectures establishing his theme: ‘A psychological need that nations seem to have…to prove that they are bigger, better or stronger than other nations.’

arse See ALL BALLS; DOESN’T KNOW HIS.

arsehole See FROM ARSEHOLE.

arsenic and old lace Title of a play (1941) by Joseph Kesselring (filmed US 1941) about two old ladies who poison elderly gentlemen. It plays upon the earlier lavender and old lace, itself used as the title of sentimental novel (1902) by Myrtle Reed. That phrase came to be used as a way of indicating old-fashioned gentility.

ars gratia artis Motto of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film company. Howard Dietz, director of publicity and advertising with the original Goldwyn Pictures company, had left Columbia University not long before creating it circa 1916. When asked to design a trademark, he based it on the university’s lion and added the Latin words meaning ‘art for art’s sake’ underneath. The trademark and motto were carried over when Samuel Goldwyn retired to make way for the merger of Metropolitan with the interests of Louis B. Mayer in what has become known since as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Goldwyn may never have subscribed to the sentiment it expressed. Most of his working life was spent as an independent producer, famously more interested in money than art.

art See AS THE ART.

Arthur See BIG-HEARTED.

Arthur’s bosom A malapropism for ABRAHAM’S BOSOM from Shakespeare’s Henry V, II.iii.9 (1599). The Hostess (formerly Mistress Quickly) says of the dead Falstaff: ‘Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom.’

artificial See AMUSING.

(the) art of the possible What politics is said to be. A phrase used as the title of memoirs (1971) by R. A. (Lord) Butler, the British Conservative politician. In the preface to the paperback edition of The Art of the Possible, Butler noted that this definition of politics appears first to have been used in modern times by Bismarck in 1866–7 (in conversation with Meyer von Waldeck: ‘Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst [politics are not a science, as many professors declare, but an art]’). If he said precisely the phrase as used by Butler, it would have been: ‘Die Politik ist die Lehr vom Möglichen’. Others who have touched on the idea included Cavour, Salvador de Madriaga, Pindar and Camus. To these might be added J.K. Galbraith’s rebuttal: ‘Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable’ – letter to President Kennedy (March 1962), quoted in Ambassador’s Journal (1969).

art thou weary? From a hymn ‘translated from the Greek’ by the Reverend J. M. Neale (1818–66). It continues: ‘…art thou languid, / art thou sore distressed?’ Compare: ‘Art thou troubled? / Music will calm thee. Art thou weary…’ – an aria from Handel’s opera Rodelinda (1725), with libretto by Salvi.

as any fule kno [as any fool know] A stock phrase of the schoolboy character Nigel Molesworth in the books written by Geoffrey Willans and illustrated by Ronald Searle in the 1950s. The books retained the schoolboy spelling of the ‘Curse of St Custard’s’. From Down With Skool! (1953): ‘A chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno.’ The phrase had a revival from the 1980s onwards when the books were republished.

as awkward as a pig with side pockets (Of a person) very awkward. Apperson finds ‘as much need of it as a toad of a side pocket, said of a person who desires anything for which he has no real occasion’, by 1785, and ‘as much use as a cow has for side pockets’, in Cheshire Proverbs (1917). Compare as awkward as a cow with a musket.

as black as Egypt’s night Very black indeed. The allusion is biblical. Exodus 10:21 mentions the plague of ‘darkness which may be felt’ (a sandstorm, perhaps), that Moses imposed on the Pharaoh in response to the Lord’s instruction. Samuel Wesley (d. 1837) had: ‘Gloomy and dark as Hell’s or Egypt’s night’; and John and Charles Wesley’s version of Psalm 55 contains (although the Bible doesn’t): ‘And horror deep as Egypt’s night, or hell’s tremendous gloom.’ A more benign view of Egypt’s night occurs in Kipling’s ‘The White Man’s Burden’ (1899) where the people of India complain of British colonization: ‘Why brought ye us from bondage, / Our loved Egyptian night?’ – where the reference is to civilized Egypt. In the poem ‘Riding Down from Bangor’, written by the American Louis Shreve Osborne and anthologized by 1897, a bearded student and a village maiden make the most of it when the railway train in which they are travelling enters a tunnel: ‘Whiz! Slap! Bang! into the tunnel quite / Into glorious darkness, black as Egypt’s night…’

as black as Newgate knocker This comparison meaning ‘extremely black’ and known by 1881 alludes to Newgate gaol, the notorious prison for the City of London until 1880. It must have had a very formidable and notable knocker because not only do we have this expression but a ‘Newgate knocker’ was the name given to a lock of hair twisted to look like a knocker.

as black as the Devil’s nutting bag Apperson has this by 1866. Mrs Jean Wigget wrote (1995) that her mother used to say that ‘Dirty hands looked “like the colour of Old Nick’s nutting bag”.’

as busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the itch Colourful comparison, listed by Mencken (1942) as an ‘American saying’. ‘As busy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wall-paper’ appears in O. Henry, Gentle Grafter: The Ethics of Pig (1908). The supply is endless, but here are a few more: ‘as scarce as rocking-horse manure’ (an example from Australia); ‘as lonely as a country dunny’ (ditto); ‘as mad as a gumtree full of galahs’ (ditto); ‘as inconspicuous as Liberace at a wharfies’ picnic’ (ditto); ‘as black as an Abo’s arsehole’ (ditto); ‘as easy as juggling with soot’; ‘as jumpy as a one-legged cat in a sandbox’; ‘as much chance as a fart in a windstorm’; ‘as much use as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest’ (or ‘a legless man in a pants-kicking contest’ – Gore Vidal, Life Magazine (9 June 1961); ‘as likely as a snowstorm in Karachi’. In his 1973 novel Red Shift, Alan Garner has ‘you’re as much use as a chocolate teapot’; ‘as useless as a chocolate kettle’ (of a UK football team), quoted on BBC Radio Quote…Unquote (1986).

as cold as charity Ironic description of charity that is grudgingly given or dispensed without warmth – particularly by the public charities of the Victorian era. In 1382, John Wycliffe translated Matthew 24:12 as: ‘The charite of many schal wexe coold.’ Robert Southey, The Soldier’s Wife (1721), has: ‘Cold is thy heart and as frozen as charity’. Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, Chap. 43 (1865) has: ‘The wind is as cold as charity.’

as dark as the inside of a cow As dark as it can possibly be. A likely first appearance of this phrase is in Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chap. 4 (1891). He puts it within quotes, thus: ‘…made the place “dark as the inside of a cow,” as the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way.’ So probably an American coinage. A few years later Somerville & Ross were writing in Some Experiences of an Irish RM, Chap. 10 (1899): ‘As black as the inside of a cow’.

as different as chalk from cheese Very different indeed (despite the superficial similarity that they both look whitish). In use since the 16th century, although the pairing of the alliterative chalk and cheese has been known since 1393. Sometimes found as ‘not to know chalk from cheese’ – unable to tell the difference – or ‘to be able to tell chalk from cheese’ – to have good sense.

as dim as a Toc H lamp Very dim (unintelligent). Dates from the First World War in which there was a Christian social centre for British ‘other ranks’ opened at Talbot House in Poperinghe, Belgium, in 1915 and named after an officer who was killed – G. W. L. Talbot, son of a Bishop of Winchester. ‘Toc H’ was signalese for ‘Talbot House’. The institute continued long after the war under its founder, the Reverend P. B. (‘Tubby’) Clayton. A lamp was its symbol.

as Dorothy Parker once said…The title of a stage show (circa 1975), devoted to the wit of Dorothy Parker and performed by Libby Morris. This is testimony to the fact that Parker is undoubtedly the most quoted woman of the 20th century. It is probably an allusion to the verse of Cole Porter’s song ‘Just One of Those Things’ (1935), that begins: ‘As Dorothy Parker once said to her boy friend, “Fare thee well”…’

as easy as falling off a log Very simple. This citation from the New Orleans Picayune (29 March 1839) suggests a North American origin and the quotation marks, that it was reasonably well established by that date: ‘He gradually went away from the Lubber, and won the heat, “just as easy as falling off a log”.’

as every schoolboy knows ‘It is a well-known fact’ – a consciously archaic use. Robert Burton wrote ‘Every schoolboy hath…’in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) and Bishop Jeremy Taylor used the expression ‘every schoolboy knows it’ in 1654. In the next century, Jonathan Swift had, ‘I might have told how oft Dean Perceval / Displayed his pedantry unmerciful, / How haughtily he cocks his nose, / To tell what every schoolboy knows’, in his poem ‘The Country Life’ (1722). But the most noted user of this rather patronizing phrase was Lord Macaulay, the historian, who would say things like, ‘Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa’ (essay on ‘Lord Clive’, January 1840). But do they still?

as if I cared…Catchphrase from the 1940s BBC radio series ITMA. Sam Fairfechan (Hugh Morton) would say, ‘Good morning, how are you today?’ and immediately add, ‘As if I cared…’ The character took his name from Llanfairfechan, a seaside resort in North Wales, where Ted Kavanagh, ITMA’s scriptwriter, lived when the BBC Variety Department was evacuated to nearby Bangor during the early part of the Second World War.

as it happens A verbal tic of the British disc jockey Jimmy Savile (later Sir James Savile OBE) (b. 1926). He used it as the title of his autobiography in 1974. However, when the book came out in paperback the title had been changed to Love Is an Uphill Thing because (or so it was explained) the word ‘love’ in the title would ensure extra sales. After dance-hall exposure, Savile began his broadcasting career with Radio Luxembourg in the 1950s. His other stock phrase how’s about that then, guys and gals? started then. For example, on Radio Luxembourg, The Teen and Twenty Disc Club, he certainly said, ‘Hi, there, guys and gals, welcome to the…’

as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…A humorous phrase used when resuming an activity after an enforced break. In September 1946, Cassandra (William O’Connor) resumed his column in the Daily Mirror after it had been suspended for the duration of the Second World War, with: ‘As I was saying when I was interrupted, it is a powerful hard thing to please all the people all the time.’ In June of that same year, announcer Leslie Mitchell is reported to have begun BBC TV’s resumed transmissions with: ‘As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.’ The phrase sounds as if it might have originated in music-hall routines of the I DON’T WISH TO KNOW THAT, KINDLY LEAVE THE STAGE type. Compare A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926): ‘“AS – I – WAS – SAYING,” said Eeyore loudly and sternly, “as I was saying when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that –”.’ Fary Luis de León, the Spanish poet and religious writer, is believed to have resumed a lecture at Salamanca University in 1577 with, ‘Dicebamus hesterno die…[We were saying yesterday].’ He had been in prison for five years.

as I walked out one midsummer morning The title of Laurie Lee’s memoir As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) uses a format phrase that occurs in a number of English folk songs. Indeed, in his earlier Cider With Rosie, Lee refers to an old song with the line, ‘As I walked out one May morning’. Another folk song begins, ‘As I rode out one midsummer’s morning.’ Compare the line from the Robert Burns’ poem, ‘As I went out ae [= one] May morning’ (which is based on an old Scottish song).

ask See DON’T.

ask a silly question (get a silly answer) A response to an answer that is less than helpful or amounts to a put-down. The second part is often not spoken, just inferred. Probably since the late 19th century.

ask the man who owns one This slogan for Packard motors, in the USA from circa 1902, originated with James Ward Packard, the founder of the company, and appeared for many years in all Packard advertising and sales material. Someone had written asking for more information about his motors. Packard told his secretary: ‘Tell him that we have no literature – we aren’t that big yet – but if he wants to know how good an automobile the Packard is, tell him to ask the man who owns one.’ A 1903 Packard placard is the first printed evidence of the slogan in use. It lasted for more than 35 years.

as lazy as Ludlum’s dog who lay down to bark Very lazy. Partridge/Slang has ‘lazy as Ludlum’s/(David) Laurence’s/Lumley’s dog…meaning extremely lazy…According to the [old] proverb, this admirable creature leant against a wall to bark’ and compares the 19th-century ‘lazy as Joe the marine who laid down his musket to fart’ and ‘lazy as the tinker who laid his budget to fart’. Apperson finds ‘lazy as Ludlam’s dog, that leant his head against a wall to bark’ in Ray’s proverb collection (1670).

as long as you’ve got your health, that’s the main thing A resounding cliché – uttered in BBC TV, Hancock, ‘The Blood Donor’ (23 June 1961). The corollary: ‘If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.’

as many---as you’ve had hot dinners Originally perhaps ‘I’ve had as many women…’, this is an experienced person’s boast to one less so. Well established by the mid-20th century, then subjected to endless variation. ‘I’ve had more gala luncheons than you’ve had hot dinners’ – BBC TV, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (12 October 1969); ‘If I agreed to these sorts of requests my name would be on more notepaper than you’ve had hot dinners’ – letter from Kenneth Williams (16 July 1975) in The Kenneth Williams Letters (1994).

as near as damn is to swearing Very close indeed. First heard from a Liverpool optician in 1963. No confirmation from any other source.

as night follows day…Inevitably. Possibly a Shakespearean coinage – in Hamlet (I.iii.78) (1600), Polonius says: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man’. Further examples: ‘Because, if incomes run ahead of production, it will follow as night follows day, that the only result will be higher prices and no lasting improvement in living standards’ – Harold Wilson in a speech to the Shopworkers’ Union Conference (1965); ‘As surely as night follows day, the pompous, the pretentious and the politically correct will seize the lion’s share of the money available’ – leading article, Daily Mail (28 April 1995).

as one does A slightly destabilizing comment in conversation. Indentified by Miles Kington in The Independent (2 May 2000): ‘One recent expression that has caught on in a big way is: “As one does,” or variants of it. Someone says, “I was going along the Piccadilly the other day wearing one green, one brown sock,” and while all the other listeners are waiting patiently to hear why this happened and whether it can be made funny, there is always one smart alec who pipes up: “As one does.” That is still very trendy, and I wish it wasn’t.’ Another version is as you do. ‘The couple retain a pad in Canada as well as homes in London, New York and Palm Beach, and it’s to Toronto that Lady Black “flies to get her hair cut”. As you do’ – The Guardian (26 August 2002).

as pleased as Punch The earliest citation for this phrase is in a letter from the poet Thomas Moore to Lady Donegal in 1813: ‘I was (as the poet says) as pleased as Punch.’ Obviously this alludes to the appearance of Mr Punch, a character known in England from the time of the Restoration (1660). As his face is carved on wood, it never changes expression and is always beaming. The Longman Dictionary of English Idioms (1979) is thus clearly wrong in attributing the origin of the phrase to ‘the cheerful pictures of the character Punch, who appeared on the covers of Punch magazine in the 1840s’. Even earlier, there was the expression as proud as punch. A description of a visit by George III and his Queen to Wilton House in 1778 is contained in a letter from a Dr Eyre to Lord Herbert (1 January 1779). He says: ‘The Blue Closet within was for her Majesty’s private purposes, where there was a red new velvet Close Stool, and a very handsome China Jordan, which I had the honour to produce from an old collection, & you may be sure, I am proud as Punch, that her Majesty condescended to piss in it.’ This version – ‘as proud as Punch’ – would now seem to have died out, more or less, although Christy Brown, Down All the Days, Chap. 17 (1970) has, ‘Every man-jack of them sitting there proud as punch with their sons…’

as queer as Dick’s hatband (it went round twice and then didn’t meet or wouldn’t tie) Very odd. Numerous versions of this saying have been recorded but all indicate that something is not right with a person or thing. ‘A botched-up job done with insufficient materials was “like Dick’s hat-band that went half-way round and tucked”’ – according to Flora Thompson, Lark Rise, Chap. 3 (1939). The OED2 gives the phrase thus: ‘as queer (tight, odd, etc.) as Dick’s (or Nick’s) hatband’, and adds: ‘Dick or Nick was probably some local character or half-wit, whose droll sayings were repeated.’ Partridge/Slang describes it as ‘an intensive tag of chameleonic sense and problematic origin’ and dating it from the mid-18th to the early 19th century, finds a Cheshire phrase, ‘all my eye and Dick’s hatband’, and also a version that went, ‘as queer as Dick’s hatband, that went nine times round and wouldn’t meet.’ In Grose (1796) is the definition: ‘I am as queer as Dick’s hatband; that is, out of spirits, or don’t know what ails me.’ But who was Dick, if anybody? Brewer (1894) was confident that it knew the answer: Richard Cromwell (1626–1712), who succeeded Oliver, his father, as Lord Protector in 1658 and did not make a very good job of it. Hence, ‘Dick’s hatband’ was his ‘crown’, as in the following expressions: Dick’s hatband was made of sand (‘his regal honours were a “rope of sand”’), as queer as Dick’s hatband (‘few things have been more ridiculous than the exaltation and abdication of Oliver’s son’) and as tight as Dick’s hatband (‘the crown was too tight for him to wear with safety’).