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A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
Читать онлайн.Название A Word In Your Shell-Like
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isbn 9780007373499
Автор произведения Nigel Rees
Жанр Справочная литература: прочее
Издательство HarperCollins
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’).
as right as ninepence Very right, proper, correct, in order. But why ninepence? Once again, the lure of alliteration lead to the (probably) earlier phrase ‘as nice as ninepence’, and then the slightly less happy phrase resulted when someone was coining an ‘as right as’ comparison. In any case, the word ‘ninepence’ occurs in a number of proverbial phrases (‘as like as nine pence to nothing’, ‘as neat as ninepence’), dating from the time when this was a more substantial amount of money than it now is.
as seen on TV A line used in print advertising to underline a connection with products already shown in TV commercials. Presumably of American origin and dating from the 1940s/50s. Now also used to promote almost anything – books, people – that has ever had the slightest TV exposure. From Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure (1976): ‘There was sponge cake of the most satisfactory consistency. Unlike the bready stuff that passes for sponge cake today (machine-made, packaged to be stirred up, as seen on TV)…’
as sure as eggs is eggs Absolutely certain. A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew by ‘B.E.’ has ‘As sure as eggs be eggs’ in 1699. There is no very obvious reason why eggs should be ‘sure’, unless the saying is a corruption of the mathematician or logician’s ‘x is x’. But by the 18th century, the saying was being shortened to