A Word In Your Shell-Like - Nigel Rees

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do you want, Ingrid? An exchange between Pat Hayes and Fred Yule from the BBC radio show, Ray’s a Laugh (1949–60). ‘Charlie’ was pronounced ‘Char–har–lie’.

      Charlie Farnsbarns A foolish person whose name one cannot remember or does not care to. Although this moderately well-known expression escaped Eric Partridge and his reviser, Paul Beale, in Partridge/Slang, Beale commented (1985): ‘Charlie Farnsbarns was a very popular equivalent of e.g. “Mrs Thing” or “Old Ooja”, i.e. “Old whatsisname”. Much play was made with the name in [the BBC radio show] Much Binding In the Marsh, but whether Murdoch and Horne actually invented it, or whether they borrowed it “out of the air”, I’m afraid I don’t know. They would mention especially, I remember, a magnificent motorcar called a “Farnsbarns Special” or something like, say, a “Farnsbarns Straight Eight”. This was in the period, roughly, 1945–50, while I was at school – I recall a very jolly aunt of mine who was vastly amused by the name and used it a lot.’ Of course, a ‘Charlie’ (as in CHASE ME CHARLIE, PROPER CHARLIE and RIGHT CHARLIE) has long been a slightly derogative name to apply to an ordinary bloke. In Australia, it may also be a shortening of ‘Charlie Wheeler’, rhyming slang for ‘Sheila’, a girl (recorded in Sydney Baker, The Australian Language, 1945). ‘Farnsbarns’ has the numbing assonance needed to describe a bit of a nonentity. The phrase probably came out of the services (possibly RAF) in the Second World War.

      Charlie’s dead Cry indicating that a woman’s slip or petticoat is showing below the hem of her dress. Known by the 1940s at least. Could it be that it looks like a flag flying at half-mast because Charlie is dead?

      (a) charmed life A life in which luck and ease are in full measure. ‘Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; / I bear a charmed life’ – Shakespeare, Macbeth, V.viii.12 (1606). Charmed Life – title of a book by Mary McCarthy (1956). ‘“Actually, the goaltender led a charmed life. Most of the danger was involved with the fellow who played between point and cover-point’ – The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (16 May 1967); ‘The sport remains intensely and inherently dangerous. There have been narrow escapes in recent years. But there is little doubt that Formula One had begun to think it led a charmed life. The trouble with the charmed life was that it coincided with the sport becoming more boring’ – The Guardian (2 May 1994); ‘They were married the following year and lived happily ever after. “I think they had a charmed life,” says Hagerty. “They were both passionate about photography and the landscape”’ – The Guardian (9 July 1994).

      (a) charm offensive A happy coinage (along the lines of ‘peace offensive’) for the gregarious and open tactics towards the West of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, around 1986. These tactics contrasted greatly with the frosty style of his predecessors. Later used to describe glad-handing by anybody, especially if this marks a change of tactics. ‘Now enraged beyond all reason, the furious drummer launches a widespread charm offensive and appears on all daytime chat shows to promote his rotten new record’ – The Spectator (7 December 2002).

      chase See CUT TO THE.

      chase me, (Charlie) ‘Chase me’ has been the catchphrase of the camp British comedian Duncan Norvelle since before 1986. ‘Chase me, Charlie’, as the title of a song from Noël Coward’s Ace of Clubs (1950) was not original. It had also been the title of a popular song current in 1900.

      (the) chattering classes A term for those newspaper journalists and broadcasters who are paid to discuss topics of current interest, the opinion-formers, but also those – usually of a liberal bent – who simply like to talk about them. The phrase first registered when Alan Watkins used it in The Observer (4 August 1985): ‘At the beginning of the week the Daily Mail published, over several days, a mélange of popular attitudes towards Mrs Thatcher. Even though it contained little that was surprising or new, it was much discussed among the chattering classes.’ Subsequently, Watkins described (in The Guardian, 25 November 1989) how the phrase had been coined by the rightish political commentator Frank Johnson in conversation with Watkins in the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership (i.e. circa 1980). Johnson believes he first used the phrase in Now! Magazine in 1981.

      cheap and cheerful A self-deprecatingly compensatory phrase in middle-class British use since the 1950s. Used when showing clothes or furniture or home when these are not of the high standards that one would like. ‘Do you like my new flat? It’s cheap and cheerful – but it’s home!’

      (it would be) cheap at half the price Cheap, very reasonable. Not a totally sensible phrase, dating probably from the 19th century. Presumably what it means is that the purchase in question would still be cheap and a bargain if it was twice the price that was being asked. Some consider that the expression does make sense if ‘cheap’ is taken as meaning ‘of poor quality’, in other words, ‘it would still be a poor bargain if it was only half the price.’ Another interpretation is that the market trader means that his product is ‘cheap, at half the price it ought to be.’ The rest of us are not convinced by such arguments. In his Memoirs (1991), Kingsley Amis comments on phrases like this that perform semantic somersaults and manage to convey meanings quite the reverse of their literal ones. He cites from a soldier: ‘I’d rather sleep with her with no clothes on than you in your best suit.’

      check and double check See I’SE REGUSTED.

      checkmate See END GAME.

      (the) Cheeky Chappie See HERE’S A FUNNY THING.

      cheeky monkey! See RIGHT MONKEY!

      cheerful Charlie See PROPER CHARLIE.

      cheese See AS DIFFERENT; HELLISH DARK.

      (to be) cheesed off (or browned off) ‘To be fed up’ – both terms known since 1941. ‘Cheese’ and ‘off-ness’ rather go together, so one might think of cheese as having an undesirable quality. Also, when cheese is subjected to heat, it goes brown, or gets ‘browned off’. On the other hand, the phrase could derive from ‘cheese off’, an expression like ‘fuck off’, designed to make a person go away. ‘Cheesed off’ may just be a state of rejection, like ‘pissed off’.

      (a) chequered career A working life that is full of ups and downs. Book title: A Chequered Career, or Fifteen Years in Australia and New Zealand by H. W. Nesfield (1881). ‘My career with 20th Century Fox was somewhat chequered’ – The Listener (17 August 1967); ‘It is the latest blow to Mr Tapie’s much chequered career. This year he has been prosecuted by Customs over his yacht, been accused of match rigging and seen Olympique Marseille relegated to the second division’ – The Daily Telegraph (21 May 1994); ‘Myers has spent two episodes of his chequered career with Widnes, but he rarely enjoyed the freedom in their colours that he discovered playing against their sadly depleted current line-up yesterday’ – The Independent (12 September 1994).

      cherchez la femme [look for the woman]! The key to a problem, the answer to some mystery, is the involvement of a woman. Attributed in this form to Joseph Fouché, the French revolutionary and politician (1763–1820). The first citation, however, is ‘cherchons la femme [let us look for the woman]’, from Alexandre Dumas (père) in his novel Les Mohicans de Paris (1854–5). ‘There’s a quarrel – a scandal – cherchez la femme – always a woman at the bottom of it’ – Bernard Shaw, The Philanderer (1898).

      (a) cherished belief A belief that one holds dear. Date of origin unknown. ‘I brought him up to think for himself and to challenge things if I said something was true. I wanted him to say what he felt even if it was against my most cherished belief’ – The Daily Telegraph (12 July 1994); ‘The dream is for the duvet-cover or the pillow-case to spring to life – “I want Mark’s baby,” said one girl with shocking candour. The most cherished belief is that if the

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