A Word In Your Shell-Like - Nigel Rees

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‘Well, that’s a judgement that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from the outside (and perhaps you are taking rather a parochial view), I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.’ Next day, The Sun carried the headline: ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ Callaghan lost the May 1979 General Election. The editor of The Sun was given a knighthood by the incoming Prime Minister. Some people insist on recalling that Callaghan said something much more like ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ on the TV news. When told that these words do not survive on film, these people begin to talk about conspiracy theories. But the impression he created was a strong one. In The Diaries of Kenneth Williams (1993), the comedian noted in his entry for 10 January 1979 (the day of Callaghan’s return and not of the Sun headline, which he would not have seen anyway): ‘Saw the news. Callaghan arrived back from Guadeloupe saying, “There is no chaos” which is a euphemistic way of talking about the lorry drivers ruining all production and work in the entire country, but one admires his phlegm.’

      crocodile tears A false display of sorrow. The legend that crocodiles shed tears in order to lure victims to their deaths was established by the year 1400. In an account of a 1565 voyage by Sir John Hawkins (published by Richard Hakluyt, 1600), there is: ‘In this river we saw many crocodiles…His nature is ever when he would have his prey, to cry and sob like a Christian body, to provoke them to come to him, and then he snatcheth at them.’ Shakespeare makes reference to crocodile tears in Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and Henry VI.

      crop See CREAM OF THE.

      cropper See COME A.

      (a) cross of gold William Jennings Bryan’s speech to the Democratic Convention in July 1896 contained an impassioned attack on supporters of the gold standard: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.’ Bryan had said virtually the same in a speech to the House of Representatives on 22 December 1894. He won the nomination and fought the presidential election against William J. McKinley, who supported the gold standard but lost. A ‘cross of gold’-type speech is sometimes called for when a politician (like Edward Kennedy in 1980) is required to sweep a convention with his eloquence.

      crossroads See DIRTY WORK.

      (to) cross the Rubicon To make a significant decision from which there is no turning back. An allusion to Julius Caesar’s crossing the stream of that name in 49 BC, which meant that he passed from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy and thus became an invader. Known by 1626. Hence also this limited application: ‘“I’ve been to Paris with Fulke Warwick…” “Talk about crossing the Rubicon.” “Crossing the Rubicon” was deb talk for going all the way’ – Christopher Ogden, Life of the Party (1994).

      crow See AS THE.

      (a) crowd pleaser Any form of art and entertainment that contains obviously popular elements inserted simply with the intention of ‘playing to the gallery’. Known by 1943 in North America. ‘George Eliot and Charles Dickens are the giants of the Victorian novel. Eliot was an uncompromising highbrow; Dickens a shameless crowd-pleaser. In the end, only the quality matters’ – Evening Standard (London) (30 June 1994); ‘The wish to increase the number of available third level places is a noble one and a sure fire crowd pleaser, but unless the Department of Education is willing to put its money where its mouth is by extending college facilities and employing more staff, the admission of yet more young hopefuls would be lunacy’ – The Irish Times (29 August 1994).

      crown imperial ‘Crown Imperial’ was the title given to Sir William Walton’s march, which was composed for the coronation of King George VI in 1936. ‘Orb and Sceptre’ followed for that of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. In a television interview, Walton said that if he lived to write a march for a third coronation it would be called ‘Sword and Mace’. He was alluding to the passage from Shakespeare, Henry V, IV.i.266 (1599): ‘’Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, / The sword, the mace, the crown imperial /…That beats upon the high shore of this world.’ Oddly enough, the orchestral parts of ‘Crown Imperial’ bear a different quotation: ‘In beauty bearing the crown imperial’ from the poem ‘In Honour of the City’ by William Dunbar. This is what Walton must have begun with, subsequently discovering the Shakespeare sequence.

      (the) crowning glory Meaning, ‘whatever puts the final touches to a triumph or is the culmination of a series of triumphs or outstanding features’. Known by 1902. ‘Gerty’s crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair’ – James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). ‘Tennis…It is as though the subjects of the Queen of Eastbourne reached a collective decision at the beginning of the week to offer the 37-year-old a final crowning glory before she bids farewell to the place she has made her own’ – The Times (16 June 1994); ‘That was the era when Coney Island was billed as The Eighth Wonder Of The World. Brooklyn was the second largest city in America, and Coney was its crowning glory’ – The Sunday Times (4 September 1994).

      (the) crown jewels Anything of great value, so named after the British Crown Jewels stored in the Tower of London. ‘Crown jewels…the male genitals’ – Julia P. Stanley, ‘Homosexual Slang’, American Speech, xlv (1970); ‘Material so sensitive that national security demands that the material is not exposed to the public…It was necessary for the jury to examine in detail the material – called “the Crown Jewels” – in order that it might understand the full facts’ – The Guardian (29 January 1985); ‘Move to safeguard TV “crown jewels” [important programmes]’ – headline in The Guardian (17 January 1996).

      crucial A 1980s’ vogue word, used by the young to convey the same as ‘great’, ‘fantastic’. It came into British slang – from American hip hop, apparently – through its use as a catchphrase of Delbert Wilkins, a creation of the British comedian Lenny Henry (b. 1958). As presenter of a record programme on BBC Radio 1 in 1982, Henry portrayed ‘Wilkins’ as a garrulous DJ from a Brixton pirate radio station. ‘Well, basic, well, crucial, man!’ he would say. He also used the word wicked to mean ‘wonderful’, ‘splendid’, and this also passed into youth slang. His exclamation diamond! did not. Henry first came to notice as a 16-year-old on ITV’s New Faces. His send-up of a woolly-hatted Rastafarian – Algernon Winston Spencer Churchill Gladstone Disraeli Pitt the Younger Razzmatazz – gave the West Indian catchphrase Ooookaaay! to a generation of school-children. On ITV’s O.T.T. (1982), Henry introduced another black character, ‘Joshua Yarlog’, with the catchphrase Katanga! (which, as one paper commented, ‘half the population already seems to have taken up in an attempt to drive the other half mad’).

      cruellest See IS THE.

      (the) crux of the matter (or case or problem) The central or divisive point of interest, especially in argument or debate. Date of origin unknown. ‘The crux of the matter is that the behaviour under consideration must pass through the needle’s eye of social acceptance’ – Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (1934); ‘“Precisely,” answered the officer, “and that brings us to the crux of the matter. Namely, that the Eurocorps is a historical or political symbol, but remains a military nonentity’ – The European (22 July 1994); ‘The crux of the matter is that the Europeans believe that the Bosnians are almost certain to be the losers even if the arms embargo is lifted, while the Americans profess to believe that the Bosnians could beat the Serbs if there was equality in weaponry’ – The Guardian (29 November 1994).

      (to) cry all the way to the bank Meaning ‘to be in a position to ignore criticism’, this expression was certainly popularized, if not actually invented, by the flamboyant pianist Liberace (1919–87). In his autobiography (1973), Liberace wrote: ‘When the reviews are bad I tell my staff that they can join me as I cry all the way to the bank.’ Liberace was using the expression by 1954. In Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest (US

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