LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of founding a conclusion on the basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself’ and includes under ‘Misapprehensions’ that ‘to beg a question is to avoid giving a straight answer.’

      behind See ALL BEHIND.

      behind closed doors Secretively, out of sight. There was a novel entitled Behind Closed Doors (1888) by A. K. Kreen, but the phrase does not seem to have caught on until the 1920s. Washington: Behind Closed Doors was the title of a fictional TV series about presidential politics (US 1977–8) – based on the Watergate affair; ‘Strange goings-on behind the closed doors of that exotic building just off Great Queen Street, Covent Garden…Freemasons’ Hall they call it, a secret world, a world of secrets’ – The Independent (19 May 1995); ‘This unique and fascinating tour uncovers a Venice normally hidden behind closed doors’ – Ultimate Travel Company brochure (January 2003).

      behind every—man stands a—woman A much used, unascribed format that is probably most often encountered nowadays in parodied versions. Working backwards, here are some of the parodies: ‘Behind every good man is a good woman – I mean an exhausted one’ – the Duchess of York, speech, September 1987. ‘As usual there’s a great woman behind every idiot’ – John Lennon (quoted 1979). ‘Behind every successful man you’ll find a woman who has nothing to wear’ – L. Grant Glickman (quoted 1977) or James Stewart (quoted 1979). ‘We in the industry know that behind every successful screenwriter stands a woman. And behind her stands his wife’ – Groucho Marx (quoted 1977). ‘The road to success is filled with women pushing their husbands along’ – Lord (Thomas R.) Dewar, quoted in Stevenson, The Home Book of Quotations (1967). ‘And behind every man who is a failure there’s a woman, too!’ – John Ruge, cartoon caption, Playboy (March 1967). ‘Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law’ – Hubert Humphrey, speech (1964). An early example of the original expression occurs in an interview with Lady Dorothy Macmillan, wife of the then just retired British Prime Minister (7 December 1963). In the Daily Sketch, Godfrey Winn concluded his piece with the typical sentiment (his capitals): ‘NO MAN SUCCEEDS WITHOUT A GOOD WOMAN BEHIND HIM. WIFE OR MOTHER. IF IT IS BOTH, HE IS TWICE BLESSED INDEED.’ The Evening Standard (London) (18 April 1961) carried an advertisement showing a spaceman (Yuri Gargarin was in the news at that time) drifting off into space with the slogan, ‘Behind every great man there’s a bottle of Green Shield’ (Worthington beer). In the film The Country Girl (US 1954), William Holden spoke the lines: ‘That’s what my ex-wife used to keep reminding me of, tearfully. She had a theory that behind every great man there was a great woman.’ In Love All, a little known play by Dorothy L. Sayers, that opened at the Torch Theatre, Knightsbridge, London, on 9 April 1940 and closed before the end of the month, was this: ‘Every great man has a woman behind him…And every great woman has some man or other in front of her, tripping her up.’ Even earlier, Sayers herself referred to it as an ‘old saying’ in Gaudy Night, Chap. 3 (1935). Harriet Vane is talking to herself, musing on the problems of the great woman who must either die unwed or find a still greater man to marry her: ‘Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him – or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.’

      behind me See GET THEE.

      behind you See OH NO THERE ISN’T.

      being for the benefit of—A standard 19th-century phrase used in advertising for ‘testimonial’ performances. The title of Chapter 48 of Nicholas Nickleby (1838–9) by Charles Dickens is: ‘Being for the benefit of Mr Vincent Crummles, and Positively his last Appearance on this Stage.’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ is the title of a track on the Beatles’ Segeant Pepper album (1967). The lyric, largely written by John Lennon, though credited jointly to him and Paul McCartney, derive almost word for word, as Lennon acknowledged, from the wording of a Victorian circus poster dated 1843 and in his possession.

      belfry See BATS IN THE.

      Belgium See IF IT’S TUESDAY.

      believe it or not! This exclamation was used as the title of a long-running syndicated newspaper feature, and radio and TV series, in the USA. Robert Leroy Ripley (1893–1949) created and illustrated a comic strip, Ripley’s Believe It or Not (circa 1923), but citations for the phrase before this are lacking.

      believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear Mencken (1942) finds an early quotation of this proverbial saying in A Woman’s Thoughts by Dinah Mulock Craik (1858) where it is described as a ‘cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears’. As such, it builds upon the simpler ‘Don’t believe all you hear’, which CODP finds in some form before 1300, perhaps even as a proverb of King Alfred the Great’s.

      be like dad, keep mum British security slogan of the Second World War, emanating from the Ministry of Information in 1941. Another version was keep mum, she’s not so dumb and showed a very un-Mum-like blonde being ogled by representatives of the three services. The security theme was paramount in both the UK and US wartime propaganda. Civilians as well as military personnel were urged not to talk about war-related matters lest the enemy somehow got to hear. Compare MUM’S THE WORD.

      be like that (as also be that way)! A joshing remark made to someone who has said something, or is doing something, of which you disapprove. American and British use by the mid-20th century.

      bell, book and candle Phrase from a solemn form of excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. Bartlett (1980) says the ceremony has been current since the 8th century AD. There is a version dating from AD 1200 which goes: ‘Do to the book [meaning, close it], quench the candle, ring the bell.’ These actions symbolize the spiritual darkness the person is condemned to when denied further participation in the sacraments of the church. Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) has: ‘I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.’ Shakespeare has the modern configuration in King John, III.ii.22 (1595): ‘Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back.’ Bell, Book and Candle was the title of John Van Druten’s play (1950; filmed US 1958) about a publisher who discovers that his girlfriend is a witch.

      (the/la) belle époque Literally ‘the beautiful time, fine era’, this phrase is used to describe the period of assured and comfortable living, particularly in France, from the last years of the 19th century until the outbreak of the First World War. It is particularly applied to the life of artistic and literary people of the time. Catalogues show that the phrase appears – first of all in French book titles – around 1948, with one possible case in 1936. From 1948 onwards it became generally known. The phrase without its modern meaning has been current since at least the late 18th century, in the more general sense of ‘the best period’ of, for example, Egyptian or mediaeval art, or the happiest days in someone’s life. Victor Hugo, in a letter written before 1848, put: ‘Quoi qu’on en dise, l’époque où nous vivons est une belle époque.’

      Bellman and True See FROM A VIEW.

      bells and smells Phrase characterizing Anglo-Catholicism or the ‘High’ Anglican church with its emphasis on incenseburning and other rites more usually associated with Roman Catholicism. Sometimes given as ‘bells and spells’, the phrase was established by the early 1980s. Such rites (and their adherents) are also described as way up the candle.

      (the) bells! the bells! Supposed cry of Mathias, a burgomaster, who constantly sees visions of a man that he long ago murdered and robbed, in The Bells, an adaptation by Leopold Lewis of Erckmann-Chatrian’s play Le Juif Polonais. Chiefly associated with the actor (Sir) Henry Irving who had his first great success with it when it was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in 1871. Impressions of Irving invariably include the line in which Mathias is haunted by the sound of the sledge bells

Скачать книгу