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dabra, dabra! See EYEYDON.

daddy See DON’T GO DOWN.

Dad’s Army The long-running BBC TV comedy series Dad’s Army (1968–77) established in general use a nickname for the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), formed in Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War and soon renamed the Home Guard. ‘Dad’s Army’ was a posthumous nickname given by those looking back on the exploits of this civilian force (though its members were uniformed and attached to army units). Many of the members were elderly men.

daft See EE, ISN’T IT.

daft as a brush Meaning ‘stupid’, this expression was adapted from the northern English soft as a brush by the comedian Ken Platt (1921–98), who said in 1979: ‘I started saying daft as a brush when I was doing shows in the Army in the 1940s. People used to write and tell me I’d got it wrong!’ (Partridge/Slang suggests that ‘daft…’ was in use before this, however, and Paul Beale reports the full version – ‘daft as a brush without bristles’ – from the 1920s.)

daggers See AT DAGGERS.

Damascus See ROAD TO DAMASCUS.

damn See AS NEAR AS.

(a) damn close-run thing A narrow victory. What the 1st Duke of Wellington actually told the memoirist Thomas Creevey about the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was: ‘It has been a damned serious business. Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing – the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life’ (18 June 1815). The Creevey Papers in which this account appears were not published until 1903. Somehow out of this description a conflated version arose, with someone else presumably supplying the ‘close-run’.

damn(ed) clever these Chinese (or dead clever chaps/devils these Chinese) Referring to a reputation for wiliness rather than skill. A Second World War phrase taken up from time to time by the BBC radio Goon Show (1951–60). Compare the line ‘Damn clever, these Armenians’ uttered by Claudette Colbert in the film It Happened One Night (US 1934).

damned if you do and damned if you don’t A modern version of ‘betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea’ – possibly of American origin. From The Guardian (1 July 1992): ‘It’s still very much a thing with women that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If women choose to stay at home and look after their children, now they’re accused of opting out of the workforce and decision-making because they’re afraid to look up to it.’

damn fine cup of coffee – and hot! ‘Kyle Maclachlan, who plays the FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks…is one of TV’s true originals. His much loved and oft-repeated catchphrase “Damn fine cup of coffee, and hot!” has indeed caught on and Maclachlan himself parodies it crisply in a TV commercial’ – Radio Times (15–21 June 1991).

damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead! Meaning, ‘never mind the risks [torpedoes = mines], we’ll go ahead any way’. A historical quotation. David Glasgow Farragut, the American admiral, said it on 5 August 1864 at the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

(a) damsel in distress A young maiden in difficulty or in an embarrassing position and in need of rescue by a knight in shining armour, by way of allusion to supposed situations in medieval romances. Date of origin unknown. From Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random, Chap. 22 (1748): ‘Coming to the relief of a damsel in distress.’ The P. G. Wodehouse novel A Damsel in Distress (1919) eventually became a film musical (US 1937).

(the) dance of the seven veils Salome so beguiled Herod by her seductive dancing that he gave her the head of St John the Baptist, as she requested. In neither Matthew 14:6 nor Mark 6:22 is she referred to by name – only ‘as the daughter of Herodias’. The name Salome was supplied by Josephus, a 2nd-century Jewish historian. Nor is the nature of her dancing described. One must assume that the particular nature of the dance originated with Oscar Wilde in whose play Salomé (pub. 1893) appears the stage direction: ‘Salomé dances the dance of the seven veils.’ Originally, Wilde’s play was written in French). Richard Strauss took the idea for his opera Salome (1905) from it. However, a little earlier, in Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Hérodias’ in Trois contes (1877) only one veil is mentioned.

dance at the other end of the ballroom See IS SHE A FRIEND.

dancing See ALL-DANCING; ANGELS; BRING ON THE.

(to get one’s) dander up Meaning ‘to get ruffled or angry’, the expression occurs in William Thackeray’s Pendennis, Chapter 44 (1848–50): ‘Don’t talk to me about daring to do this thing or t’other, or when my dander is up it’s the very thing to urge me on.’ Apparently of US origin (known by 1831), where ‘dander’ was either a ‘calcined cinder’ or ‘dandruff’. It is hard to see how the expression develops from either of these meanings. The Dutch word donder, meaning ‘thunder’, or ‘dunder’, a Scottish dialect word for ‘ferment’, may be more relevant.

(the) dangerous age The title of an early (and very mild) Dudley Moore film comedy of 1967 was Thirty Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia. This would seem to allude, however distantly and unknowingly, to Den farlige alder [The dangerous age], a book in Danish by Karin Michaelis (1910). In that instance, the dangerous age was forty. In the Moore film, it was very important for him to write a musical, or perhaps get married, before he was thirty. In fact, the ‘dangerous age’ is whatever the speaker thinks it is. It might be said of teenagers first encountering the opposite sex, ‘Well, that’s the dangerous age, of course’ as much as it might be said of married folk experiencing the SEVEN YEAR ITCH.

(from) Dan to Beersheba See FROM LAND’S END.

Darby Kelly (or Derby Kelly) Rhyming slang for ‘belly’, known in the USA but probably more so in the UK, chiefly through the song ‘Boiled Beef and Carrots’, popularised by Harry Champion (1866–1942): ‘Boiled beef and carrots – that’s the stuff for yer darby kel, / Makes yer fat an’ keeps yer well…’ But who was he? A likely person features in a marching/recruiting song that probably dates from the Napoleonic Wars – as it refers back to the singer’s grandfather’s involvement with the Duke of Marlborough as well as to the Duke of Wellington between the Peninsular Campaign and Waterloo: ‘My grandsire beat the drum complete / His name was Darby Kelly-o, / None smart as he at rat-tat-too, / At roll-call or reveille-o.’ Thomas Dibdin has been credited with the words of a song entitled ‘Darby Kelly’ and dated 1820. Whether this is the same, is not known.

(the) daring young man on the flying trapeze The original person featured in the song ‘The Man on the Flying Trapeze’ by George Leybourne and Alfred Lee (1868) was Jules Léotard (d. 1880), the French trapeze artist. He also gave his name to the tight, one-piece garment worn by ballet dancers, acrobats and other performers. The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze was the title of a volume of short stories (1934) by William Saroyan.

dark See ALL WOMEN; AS DARK; I WOULDN’T LIKE.

(the) dark continent (and darkest Africa) In 1878, H. M. Stanley, the journalist who discovered Dr Livingstone, published Through the Dark Continent and followed it, in 1890, with Through Darkest Africa. It was from these two titles that we appear to get the expressions ‘dark continent’ and ‘darkest—’ to describe not only Africa but almost anywhere remote and uncivilized. Additionally, Flexner (1982) suggests that ‘In darkest Africa’ was a screen caption in a silent film of the period 1910–14.

(the) darkest hour comes just before the dawn A proverb of the ‘things will get worse before they get better’ variety. Terence Rattigan used it in his play The Winslow Boy (1946). Mencken finds it in Thomas Fuller’s A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (1650): ‘It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.’ Whether there is any little literal truth in it is another matter.

(a) dark horse Figuratively, the phrase refers to a runner about whom everyone is ‘in the dark’ until he comes from nowhere and wins the race – of whatever kind. It is possible the term originated in Benjamin Disraeli’s novel The Young Duke: A Moral Tale Though Gay (1831) in which ‘a dark horse, which had never been thought of…rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.’ It is used especially in political contexts. ‘Rank dark horse in bid to run lottery…Brian Newman, lottery follower at Henderson Crosthwaite, says: “Because of its low profile, Rank was unfancied at the outset. But it has emerged as the dark horse”’ – The Sunday Times (15 May 1994); ‘The biggest challenges to Britain appear likely to come from Australia and the United States, with South Africa, back in both events for the first time since 1976, emerging as a possible dark horse’ – The Times (30 December 1994).

(the) dark lady of the sonnets Nickname of the beauty to whom Shakespeare addressed some of his sonnets (from no. 128 onwards). Her eyes were ‘raven black’ and so was her hair. Her identity has been a subject for literary detectives for many years, and the candidates are numerous. She was referred to as the ‘Dark Lady’ in literary criticism by 1901 but the full phrase seems to have been coined by Bernard Shaw as the title of a short play in which the Dark Lady and Shakespeare are both characters. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets was first performed in 1914.

darkness and gnashing of teeth A humorous phrase for where there is unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Taken from Matthew 8:12: ‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ‘[Rogers] had candles placed all round the dining room, in order to show off the pictures. “I asked [the Reverend Sydney] Smith how he liked the plan.” “Not at all,” he replied, “above there is a blaze of light, and below, nothing but darkness and gnashing of teeth”’ – quoted in Rogers’s Table Talk, ed. A. Dyce (1856).

darkness at noon Darkness at Noon, or the Great Solar Eclipse of the 16th June 1806 was the title of an anonymous booklet published in Boston (1806). Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon (1940) (originally written in German but apparently with the title in English) is about the imprisonment, trial and execution of a Communist who has betrayed the Party. It echoes Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671): ‘O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon.’

(a) dark night of the soul Mental and spiritual suffering prior to some big step. The phrase ‘La Noche oscura del alma’ was used as the title of a work in Spanish by St John of the Cross. This was a treatise based on his poem ‘Songs of the Soul Which Rejoices at Having Reached Union with God by the Road of Spiritual Negation’ (circa 1578). In The Crack-up (1936), F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: ‘In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.’ Douglas Adams wrote The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988), a novel.

darling See DON’T GO NEAR.

(the) darling buds of May Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 contains the lines: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate. / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.’ Hence, the titles of two modern novels. In H. E. Bates, The Darling Buds of May (1958), Charlie the tax inspector recites the poem when he is drunkenly pursuing the lovely Mariette. John Mortimer’s Summer’s Lease (1988) is about goings-on in a villa rented by English visitors to Tuscany.

(the) Darling of the Halls (Sir) George Robey, the British music-hall comedian, was sometimes known as ‘the Darling of the Halls’. The appellation derived from the possibly apocryphal exchange between the lawyer F. E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead) (1872–1930) and a judge. In the way judges have of affecting ignorance of popular culture (compare WHO ARE THE BEATLES?), the judge asked who George Robey was and Smith replied: ‘Mr George Robey is the Darling of the music halls, m’lud.’ This gains added sense when you know that the judge was Mr Justice Darling whose own witticisms attracted much publicity.

Darth Vader Applied to any dark, menacing person, this name derives from a character in the film Star Wars (US 1977) and its prequels and sequels. He was a fallen Jedi knight who had turned to evil, appeared totally in shiny black, all skin hidden, and spoke with a distorted voice. ‘Mr Lorenzo, who in some circles is viewed as the “Darth Vader” of the industry, has shown nothing but contempt for Eastern [Airlines’] employees, both union and non-contract’ – Palm Beach Post (5 March 1989).

dash my wig! An archaic oath. The writer and jazz singer George Melly described on BBC Radio Quote…Unquote (27 May 1997) how his paternal grandmother exclaimed on being offered some (then rare) Danish Blue cheese in the late 1940s: ‘Dash me wig, where did you get that?’ This turned into a Melly family saying. When cheese was fancied, they said, ‘I’ll have a bit of dash-me-wig.’ OED2 has ‘dash my wig’ as a ‘mild imprecation’ by 1797. As ‘dash my vig’ the exclamation appears in R. S. Surtees, Handley Cross, Chap. 50 (1843). Brewer (1894) finds in addition ‘Dash my buttons!’ and explains: ‘Dash is a euphemism for a common oath; and wig, buttons, etc., are relics of a common fashion at one time adopted in comedies and by “mashers” of swearing without using profane language.’

(a) date with destiny Alliterative cliché. ‘Cheers and tears at Ark Royal’s date with destiny’ – headline in The Observer (12 January 2003). Compare: ‘They had a date with fate in…Casablanca’ – poster slogan for the film (US 1941).

dat’s my boy dat said dat See GOODNIGHT, MRS CALABASH.

daughter See DON’T GO NEAR.

(a) daunting prospect (or task) A very difficult prospect/task in prospect. Date of origin unknown, but this inevitable pairing of words was a cliché by the mid-20th century. ‘Reclaiming prostitutes was a daunting prospect for charitable women however tough-minded’ – F. K. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth Century England (1980); ‘She’s always been honest with me. When I was about 21 I cooked dinner for her, which was a daunting prospect. I made a salmon souffle which I thought was rather good, but she said: ‘This is disgusting’ – Daily Mail (24 January 1995); ‘Owning a second home is an attractive, but daunting, prospect. However, a Scottish property firm believes that it has the answer at its holiday cottages in St Andrews in Fife and Drummore, near Portpatrick’ – The Herald (Glasgow) (22 February 1995); ‘Jane Forder rings to see whether I will still produce “HBR” diary entries to run alongside those of James Lees-Milne…It’s a very daunting task’ – National Trust Magazine (Summer 1995).

dawn See AT THE CRACK; CAME THE; DARKEST HOUR.

(the) dawn’s early light Phrase from ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (1814) – latterly an American national anthem – by Francis Scott Key: ‘O, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.’ Hence, also, So Proudly We Hail, title of a film (US 1943), and Twilight’s Last Gleaming, title of a film (US/West Germany 1977).

day See ALL; ANOTHER DAY; AS NIGHT; HAPPY AS THE.

day and age See IN THIS.

day for night A film-maker’s term for shooting a scene during the day and then tinting it dark to make it look like night. Hence, Day for Night – the English title given to François Truffaut’s film about film-making (1973) whose original title La Nuit Américaine [American Night], is the equivalent phrase in French film-making.

(a) day in the life ‘A Day in the Life’, the most remembered track from the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album (1967), presumably took its name from that type of magazine article and film documentary that strives to depict 24 hours in the life of a particular person or organization. In 1959, Richard Cawston produced a TV documentary that took this form, with the title This Is the BBC. The English title of a novel (1962; film UK 1971) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s use of the phrase ‘A Day in the Life’ for the description of incidents in the life of a drug-taker may have led to the Sunday Times Magazine feature ‘A Life in the Day’ (running since the 1960s) and the play title A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols (1967; film UK 1971).

(a) day late and a dollar short When describing people, this means they are unprepared and undependable, irresponsible and disorganized. By extension, to include those who habitually miss out on life’s opportunities. Confined almost exclusively to the USA, the expression seems to have arisen in the mid-20th century. There was a song, ‘Day Late and a Dollar Short’, recorded by Billy Barton in 1959. Terry McMillan wrote a novel, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, in 2001. A possible origin has been suggested – that the saying derives from field workers who were paid on a daily basis or at the end of their work period. If workers were too tired or too lazy to get in line, they lost out on that day’s wages. Compare, perhaps, TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE.

daylight robbery Flagrant over-charging – a phrase in use by the 1940s and building upon the simple ‘it’s robbery’ to describe the same thing, dating from the mid-19th century. Application of the phrase in Britain to the Window Tax (1691–1851) that led to the blocking up of windows – and thus to a literal form of daylight robbery – appears to be retrospective.

day of destiny See RENDEZVOUS.

daylight See BURN.

(the) day of the locust The relevance of the title The Day of the Locust to Nathanael West’s novel (1939) about the emptiness of life in Hollywood in the 1930s is not totally clear. Locusts are, however, usually associated with times when waste, poverty or hardship are in evidence. They also go about in swarms, committing great ravages on crops. The climax of the novel is a scene in which Tod, the hero, gets crushed by a Hollywood mob. In the Bible, Joel 2:25 has: ‘And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten’; Revelation 9:3: ‘There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them we give power’; Revelation 9:4: ‘locusts give power to hurt only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads’.

days See HAPPIEST.

(the) days of wine and roses Ernest Dowson wrote the lines: ‘They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, / Love and desire and hate…/ They are not long the days of wine and roses; / Out of a misty dream / Our path emerges for a while, then closes / Within a dream’ in ‘Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetar Incohare Longam’ (1896). Hence, The Days of Wine and Roses, title of a film (US 1962) about an alcoholic (though the phrase is often used to evoke romance). Hence, also, The Weeping and the Laughter, the title of a novel (1988) by Noel Barber, and of autobiographies by J. Maclaren-Ross (1953) and Viva King (1976).

(the) day that the rains came down A line from the song ‘The Day the Rains Came’, written by Carl Sigman and Gilbert Bécaud. Jane Morgan had a hit with it in 1958.

(the) day war broke out A catchphrase from the Second World War radio monologues of the British comedian Robb Wilton (1881–1957): ‘The day war broke out…my missus said to me, “It’s up to you…you’ve got to stop it.” I said, “Stop what?” She said, “The war.”’ Later, when circumstances changed, the phrase became ‘the day peace broke out’.

dead See AIN’T IT; BRING OUT YOUR.

dead and gone See HERE’S A FUNNY.

dead – and never called me mother This line is recalled as typical of the threevolume sentimental Victorian novel, yet it does not appear in Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne (1861) as is often supposed. Nevertheless, it was inserted in one of the numerous stage versions of the novel (that by T. A. Palmer in 1874) which were made before the end of the century. The line occurs in a scene when an errant but penitent mother who has returned in the guise of a governess to East Lynne, her former home, has to watch the slow death of her eight-year-old son (‘Little Willie’), but is unable to reveal her true identity.

dead and your arse cold See IT WILL ALL BE.

dead as a doornail Completely dead. In the Middle Ages, the doornail was the name given to the knob on which the knocker struck: ‘As this is frequently knocked on the head, it cannot be supposed to have much life in it’ – Brewer (1894). The phrase occurs as early as 1350, then again in Langland’s Piers Plowman (1362). Shakespeare uses it a couple of times, in the usual form and, as in Henry IV, Part 2, V.iii.117 (1597): Falstaff: ‘What, is the old king dead!’ Pistol: ‘As nail in door!’

(he’s) dead but he won’t lie down Partridge/Catch Phrases dates this saying from around 1910. A song with the title ‘He’s Dead But He Won’t Lie Down’ was written by Will Haines, James Harpur and Maurice Beresford for Gracie Fields to sing in the film Looking on the Bright Side (UK 1931). A separate song with this title was written by Johnny Mercer (with music by Hoagy Carmichael) for the film Timberjack (1955).

dead in the water Helpless, lacking support, finished. Suddenly popular in the late 1980s and undoubtedly of North American origin. In other words, an opponent or antagonist is like a dead fish. He is still in the water and not swimming anywhere. ‘Mr John Leese, editor of both the Standard and the Evening News, replied: “This obviously means that Mr Maxwell’s [news]paper is dead in the water”’ – The Guardian (2 March 1987).

deadlier than the male See FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.

deadly earnest Really serious. Known by 1880. A cliché phrase by the mid-20th century. ‘A recital which had more of the air of friendly music-making at home than the deadly earnest aspiration usually encountered on this platform’ – The Times (1963); ‘The Getaway is in deadly earnest about its deadly games. Without a trace of irony, it often looks crude and cruel’ – Independent on Sunday (3 July 1994); ‘All good knockabout stuff, but Elvis is in deadly earnest about his new venture’ – The Sunday Times (27 November 1994).

(to wait for) dead men’s shoes To wait for someone to die in order to inherit his possessions or position. Known by 1530. ‘Who waitth for dead men shoen, shall go long barefoote’ – included in John Heywood, Proverbs (1546).

dead men tell no tales A proverbial phrase that, oddly, does not seem to have been used as the title of a film (yet), though there was a TV movie (US 1971) with it, based on a novel by Kelly Roos. Apperson has it first appearing in the form ‘The dead can tell no tales’ in 1681. E. W. Hornung entitled a novel Dead Men Tell No Tales in 1899. ‘Dead men don’t tell tales’ appears in Walter de la Mare, The Return, Chap. 27 (1910).

(a) dead parrot Meaning, ‘something that is quite incapable of resuscitation’. This expression derives from the most famous of all Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketches, first shown on BBC TV (7 December 1969). A man (named ‘Praline’ in the script) who has just bought a parrot that turns out to be dead, registers a complaint with the pet shop owner in these words: ‘This parrot is no more. It’s ceased to be. It’s expired. It’s gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life it rests in peace. It would be pushing up the daisies if you hadn’t nailed it to the perch. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It’s an exparrot.’ In early 1988, there were signs of the phrase becoming an established idiom when it was applied to a controversial policy document drawn up as the basis for a merged Liberal/Social Democratic Party. Then The Observer commented (8 May 1988): ‘Mr Steel’s future – like his document – was widely regarded as a “dead parrot”. Surely this was the end of his 12-year reign as Liberal leader?’ In October 1990, Margaret Thatcher belatedly came round to the phrase (fed by a speechwriter, no doubt) and called the Liberal Democrats a ‘dead parrot’, at the Tory Party Conference. When the Liberals won a by-election at Eastbourne the same month, the Tory party chairman Kenneth Baker said the ‘dead parrot’ had ‘twitched’. Whether the phrase will have much further life, ONLY TIME WILL TELL. As indeed it did: on 6 October 1998, The Sun carried a front page photo of a dead parrot with the head of the Conservative Party leader William Hague superimposed. The headline was: ‘This party is no more…it has ceased to be…this is an EX-party.’

(a) dead ringer Meaning ‘one person closely resembling another’, the expression derives from horse-racing in the USA, where a ‘ringer’ has been used since the 19th century to describe a horse fraudulently substituted for another in a race. ‘Dead’ here means ‘exact’, as in ‘dead heat’. Dead Ringers was the title of a BBC Radio 4 comedy series (from 2000) featuring topical impersonations.

(a) deafening silence A silence that by being so noticeable is significant. Known by 1968. ‘Conservative and Labour MPs have complained of a “deafening silence” over the affair’ – The Times (28 August 1985); ‘Many in the Rosyth area would like to know why he has maintained a deafening silence on the issue since it was first mooted in 1986’ – letter to the editor in The Scotsman (19 August 1994); ‘As the internationals begin to multiply in the runup to the World Cup, it is deflating to realise that in too many aspects, the game in Britain is in a mess. The deafening silence which has greeted a sequence of discreditable events in recent months is shaming enough’ – The Daily Telegraph (5 November 1994).

deal See BIG DEAL.

dear boy Mode of address, now considered rather affected and often employed when poking fun at the speech of actors and similar folk. If the many people who have tried to imitate Noël Coward’s clipped delivery over the years are to be believed, the words he uttered most often in his career were ‘Dear boy’. His friend Cole Lesley claimed, however, in The Life of Noël Coward (1978) that, ‘He rarely used this endearment, though I expect it is now too late for me to be believed.’ William Fairchild, who wrote dialogue for the part of Coward in the film Star! (US 1968), was informed by the Master, after he had checked the script: ‘Too many Dear Boys, dear boy.’

dear John Name for a type of letter sent by a woman to a man and telling him that she is breaking off their relationship. Its origins are said to lie in US and Canadian armed forces’ slang of the Second World War when faithless girls back home had to find a way to admit they were carrying on with or maybe had become pregnant by other men. It subsequently became the name of a letter informing a man that he had given the woman VD. Perhaps even AIDS? Known by 1945.

dear mother See SELL THE PIG.

death See AND DEATH; ANGEL OF; HIS.

death and the maiden A phrase originally made famous by ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ – a song (D. 531) by Schubert (1817), which was a setting of a poem by Matthias Claudius (a brief exchange between the Maiden and Death). The theme was a subject that fascinated northern European painters in the 14th/15th centuries, especially Hans Baldung Grien, whose Death and the Maiden (1517) is now to be seen at Basel. It was later re-used by Schubert as the title of his notable String Quartet in D Minor (D. 810). More recently, Death and the Maiden was the title of a play (1992; filmed UK/US/France 1994) by Ariel Dorfman. His original version was in Spanish and called La Muerta y la doncella.

death by chocolate Name of a recipe for an extremely rich type of chocolate cake, described as a ‘cake/mousse dessert’ – probably of US origin. Gallows humour by chocoholics who are happily aware of the possible consequence of overindulgence in their favourite food. Known by 1990. By 2003, there were signs that, possibly in emulation of this coinage, a format phrase ‘death by—’ was emerging. TV programmes were entitled Death By Home and Death By Gardening (showing video clips of household mishaps) and headlines included ‘Death by indifference’ and ‘Death by embarrassment’.

(a/the) death knell Meaning, ‘an event that signals the end or destruction of something’. Originally, the tolling of a bell that signalled a person’s death. The figurative use has been known since the 19th century. ‘A slogan cry which would…sound the death-knell of ascendancy and West Britishism in this country’ – Dundalk Examiner (1895); ‘Boston’s union longshoremen have sounded the death knell of their traditional but unwieldy dock shape-up’ – Boston Sunday Herald (30 April 1967); ‘The Polish Parliament…yesterday voted…for a new trade union law that sounds the death knell of Solidarity’ – The Times (9 October 1982); ‘This announcement will almost certainly be the death-knell to the 25-square-mile site’ – The Scotsman (9 February 1995); ‘The European Union and Canada yesterday ended their six-week fishing dispute with a deal hailed in Ottawa as a “victory for conservation” but condemned in Spain as the “death knell for the fishing industry”’ – The Times (17 April 1995).

deathless prose/verse An (often ironical) description of writing, sometimes used self-deprecatingly about one’s own poor stuff. ‘He would embody the suggestion about the nose in deathless verse’ – Rudyard Kipling, ‘Slaves of the Lamp, Part 1’ (1897); ‘Robert Burns once expressed in deathless verse a Great Wish. His wish, translated into my far from deathless prose, was to the effect…’ – Collie Knox, For Ever England (1943); ‘A passionate devotion to your deathless prose’ – a 1963 letter from M. Lincoln Schuster to Groucho Marx in The Groucho Letters (1967); ‘No piece of prose, however deathless, is worth a human life’ – Kenneth Tynan in The Observer (13 March 1966). From an actor’s diary: ‘The writer…concentrates his most vicious verbal gymnastics [in these scenes]. After we’ve mangled the deathless prose we have another cup of tea’ – Independent on Sunday (13 May 1990).

(a/the) death of a thousand cuts (or by a thousand cuts) Meaning, ‘the destruction of something by the cumulative effect of snipping rather than by one big blow’. In February 1989, Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, told the General Synod: ‘If the Government does not take the axe to the BBC, there is surely here the shadow of death by a thousand cuts.’ The allusion may be to a literal death of this kind, as shown in the proverbial saying from an English translation of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book (1966): ‘He who is not afraid of death by a thousand cuts dares to unhorse the emperor.’ An eastern source for the phrase may be hinted at in what Jaffar the villainous magician (Conrad Veidt) says in the 1940 film version of The Thief of Baghdad: ‘In the morning they die the death of a thousand cuts.’ Carry on Up the Khyber (1968) has the phrase, too.

(the) death sentence I.e. the spoken order for execution. In English law, it really was a sentence, but quite a long one, and capable of variation. When William Corder was found guilty of the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn, Polstead, Suffolk, the Lord Chief Baron said: ‘…that sentence is, that you be taken back to the prison from which you came, and that you be taken thence, on Monday next, to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck till you are dead, and that your body shall afterwards be dissected and anatomized, and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your soul’ – reported in The Times (9 August 1828). By 1910, when Dr Harvey Crippen was being sentenced to death for the murder of his wife by poisoning, the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Alverstone), having assumed the black cap, was solemnly saying this: ‘The sentence of the Law is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison, and thence to a place of execution, that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be buried within the precincts of the prison in which you will be confined before your execution. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!’ This formula had been adopted in 1903. Ultimately it derives from and expands the medieval death sentence – ‘Suspendatur per collum [Let him be hanged by the neck].’ Along the way, it had been able to accommodate all the grisly demands made by the Law. Thus, for example, in the 17th century: ‘The Court doth award that you be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution and there shall be hanged by the neck, and, being alive, shall be cut down and your entrails to be taken out of your body, and, you living, the same to be burnt before your eyes, and your head to be cut off, your body divided into four quarters, and head and quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the King’s Majesty: and the Lord have mercy on your soul.’ The last execution was ordered in Britain in 1964. The death penalty was abolished in 1970. The OED2 does not find the actual phrase ‘death sentence’ until 1943, but in Edgar Allan Poe’s story ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1843) he writes of ‘the dread sentence of death’.

death where is thy sting? The basic element here is from 1 Corinthians 15:55: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ There is a parody: ‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling / For you but not for me, / Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling, / Or grave, thy victory?’ This was notably used by Brendan Behan in Act 3 of his play The Hostage (1958), but he was, in fact, merely adopting a song popular in the British Army 1914–18. Even before that, though, it had been sung – just like this – as a Sunday School chorus. It may have been in a Sankey and Moody hymnal, though it has not been traced. ‘There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which I found distasteful’ – P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves, Chap. 9 (1934).

(a) death wish In the original, psychological sense of the phrase, it may be one’s own death that is being wished for. In 1913, Sigmund Freud suggested that people have an innate tendency to revert to their original state. This could be self-destructive, although the death wish towards parents might also be strong. Accordingly, the phrase in its psychological sense is a translation of the German Todeswunsch, although the two words had come together in English by 1896. The film Death Wish (US 1974) and its several sequels is concerned with the death of others by way of retribution. ‘Anyone who willingly jumps from an aeroplane at 3,000 feet might be accused of having a death wish. Or perhaps it might be because two successive defeats have undermined his club’s dream of promotion. Jim Duffy would argue differently. The fact of the matter is that the Dundee manager is neither a vicarious thrill-seeker nor a crackpot in urgent need of medical assistance’ – Daily Mail (3 May 1995).

(the) debate continues Concluding phrase from BBC radio news reports of parliamentary proceedings in the 1940s/50s. The Debate Continues was also used as the title of a programme in which pundits in the studio would pick over the subjects of parliamentary debates. Compare (the) case/hunt/ search continues at the conclusion of similar broadcast (and newspaper) reports on court proceedings, escaped prisoners and missing people.

decisions, decisions! What a harried person might exclaim over having to make even a trivial choice. This is listed among the ‘Naff Expressions’ in The Complete Naff Guide (1983). It is used precisely in this way as a headline in Punch (17 June 1970). Partridge/Catch Phrases offers about 1955 as a possible starting date. There is perhaps in it an echo of the perpetually fraught White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. Although he doesn’t utter this actual phrase, he does mutter: ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting.’

deck See ALL HANDS.

decline and fall The title of the novel (1928) by Evelyn Waugh was ludicrously extended to Decline and Fall…of a Birdwatcher! when filmed (UK 1968). As with all such titles, the origin is The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1766–88) by Edward Gibbon. Compare the numerous variations on the rise and fall of—theme: The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (film US 1960); The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters – a book (1969) by John Gross; The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin –BBC TV comedy series (1976–80); The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (film UK 1970).

decus et tutamen This is the inscription to be found on the rim of the British one pound (£1) coin which replaced the banknote of that denomination in 1983. The same words, suggested by John Evelyn the diarist, had appeared on the rim of a Charles II crown of 1662/3 (its purpose then was as a safeguard against clipping). Translated as ‘an ornament and a safeguard’ – referring to the inscription rather than the coin – the words come from Virgil’s Aeneid (Bk 5) ‘Decus et tutamen in armis’. In its full form, this is the motto of the Feltmakers’ Company (incorporated 1604).

deed See BLOODY DEED.

—deeply regret(s) any embarrassment (or inconvenience) caused A cliché of apology. The standard form is something like: ‘—apologizes for the late running of this train and for any inconvenience that may have been caused’ (never mind the pain of having to listen to the apology being trotted routinely out). Incidentally, when giving apologies it is important never to be explicit as to the cause. If trains arrive late it is ‘because of late departure’ (but no apology for that); at airports, planes are late taking off ‘because of the late arrival of the incoming plane’. Or, in other words, things happen – or, rather, don’t happen, ‘for operational reasons’. Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, leader of a coup in Fiji (May 1987), was quoted as saying, ‘We apologize for any inconvenience caused.’

Deep Throat This has come to mean ‘a person within an organization who supplies information anonymously about wrongdoing by his colleagues’. It was originally the nickname given to the source within the Nixon White House who fed Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward with information that helped in their Watergate investigations (1972–4). It has been alleged that ‘Deep Throat’ never existed but was a cover for unjustified suppositions. The journalists have declined to reveal his identity before he dies. The nickname was derived from Deep Throat (US 1972), a notorious porno movie concerning a woman, played by Linda Lovelace, whose clitoris is located in the back of her throat.

(a/the) defining moment (or defining—) Meaning, ‘a time when the nature or purpose of something is made abundantly clear; a moment that encapsulates what something is all about or shapes our perception of it’. Used especially in British politics, though probably of American origin. According to William Safire in The New York Times Magazine (10 May 1998), the first person to use ‘defining moment’ in print was Howell Raines of the same paper in 1983. Identified as a current cliché in The Times (17 March 1995). ‘The political advisers of Vice-President George Bush claim that his confrontation on Monday with Mr Dan Rather, the CBS Television news anchorman, was a “defining moment” which has galvanized his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination’ – Financial Times (28 January 1988); ‘Mary Lamb, in a fit of insanity, attacked and killed her mother. It was the defining crisis of Charles Lamb’s early life, which shaped his whole future’ – Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions, Chap. 6 (1989). In fact, any use of the word ‘defining’ now borders on the cliché: ‘Today we bear witness to an extraordinary act in one of history’s defining dramas, a drama that began in a time of our ancestors when the word went forth from a sliver of land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea’ – President Clinton, speech at signing of Middle East peace accord (13 September 1993); ‘Bosnian Serb television yesterday showed dramatic footage, likely to be remembered among the defining images of the war, of UN military observers chained to poles beside ammunition dumps and key bridges’ – The Independent (27 May 1995); ‘But Marlowe’s Edward II, the defining role in McKellen’s career 26 years ago, makes spiritual and technical demands beyond this performer’s capacity’ – The Observer (28 May 1995).

de gustibus non [est] disputandum [there is no accounting for/arguing about tastes] This is a proverb and not a quotation or classical Latin. One source describes it as a ‘medieval scholastic joke’. Sometimes it is given as de gustibus et coloribus [about colours (or perhaps) beauty] non est disputandum.

Delenda est Carthago [Carthage must be destroyed] Cato the Elder (or ‘the Censor’), the Roman politician and orator (234–149 BC), punctuated or ended his speeches to the Roman Senate with this slogan for eight years around 157 BC, realizing the threat that the other state posed. It worked – Carthage was destroyed (in 146 BC) and Rome reigned supreme, though Cato had not lived to see the effect of his challenge. He did have the decency to precede the slogan with the words ‘ceterum censeo [in my opinion]’.

deliberate See THIS WEEK’S.

delightful weather we’re having for the time of year Genteel conversational gambit, possibly from the 19th century. In parody, often used as a way of changing the subject from something embarrassing. An example occurs in J. B. Priestley, When We Are Married, Act 1 (1938).

de mortuis nil nisi bonum [of the dead, speak kindly or not at all] Sometimes ascribed to Solon (circa 600 BC), this version of ‘speak not evil of the dead’ was also a saying of Chilo(n) of Sparta (one of the Seven Sages (6th century BC). Later, Sextus Propertius (who died in AD 2) wrote: ‘Absenti nemo non nocuisse velit [let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent].’ Sometimes simply referred to in the form ‘de mortuis…’, it is a proverb that appears in some form in most European languages.

den See BEARD THE LION.

Dennis the Menace This name has been applied to two separate comic book characters, one British and one American, but both have given a phrase to describe any badly behaved boy (and, by transference, person). The British Dennis was created by David Law in the Beano in 1951 and the American one by Hank Ketcham in the same year. What a coincidence. ‘Dennis the Menace Comes in From the Cold. Can Newt Gingrich save the GOP House Minority from irrelevance?’ – headline in US News & World Report (27 March 1989).

de profundis The title of Oscar Wilde’s letter of self-justification following his imprisonment (published 1905) comes from the Latin words for ‘out of the depths’ (Psalm 130).

(the) desert and the sown Phrase contrasting the desert and ground that has been seeded. Date of origin not known. ‘With me along some Strip of Herbage strown / That just divides the desert from the sown’ – Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, St. 10 (1859); ‘The difference between Hejaz and Syria was the difference between the desert and the sown’ – T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, V.lviii (1935).

Desert Storm ‘Operation Desert Storm’ was the code name bestowed by its American leadership on the Allied military operation whose aim was to reverse the 1990 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Curiously, a desert storm is the worst climatic condition under which to launch a military operation. The conflict came to be more widely known as the Gulf War (by 22 January 1991) and was concluded by March 1991.

deserves See EVERY GOOD BOY.

designer—PHRASES. This adjective was applied to clothes and fashion accessories in the 1960s/70s. It suggested that they carried the label of a particular designer, were not just mass-produced and, consequently, had extra prestige and were worth coveting. ‘Designer jeans’ (by 1978) were what probably caused people to notice the usage, bringing together, as they did, the extremes of a ‘name’ designer and mass production. Then came the jokes: fashionable Perrier was being called ‘designer water’ by 1984; studied lack of facial shaving by men left them with what was known as ‘designer stubble’ by 1989.

design for living Design for Living was the title of a play (1932) by Noël Coward. This, although dealing with what later would be called ‘trendy’ people, had nothing to do with fashion. It was about a ménage-à-trois, so the ‘living’ was in that sense. However, the phrase is often used in magazine journalism for headlines when the practical aspects of furniture and even clothes design are being discussed. The Flanders and Swann song ‘Design for Living’ in At The Drop of a Hat (1957) concerned trendy interior decorating and furnishing. Slanguage has it as a US slang expression for ‘group sex between three people’.

desist! As in ‘desist, curb your hilarity’ or ‘desist, refrain and cease’, mock-disapproving phrases employed by the British music-hall comedian (Sir) George Robey (1869–1954), the Prime Minister of Mirth (his bill matter). When disapproving of ribald laughter he had provoked, he would say things like: ‘If there is any more hilarity, you must leave. Pray temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve. Desist! And I am surprised at you, Agnes [pronounced Ag–er–ness]!’ Also ‘Go out!’ or ‘Get out!’ or simply ‘Out!’

desperate diseases require desperate remedies Proverbial saying commonly ascribed to Guy Fawkes on 6 November 1605 (when he was arrested the day after attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament). ‘A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy’ (the version according to the DNB) was apparently said by him to James I, one of his intended victims. The king asked if he did not regret his proposed attack on the Royal Family. Fawkes replied that one of his objects was to blow the Royal Family back to Scotland. He was subsequently tried and put to death. What he said, however, appears to have been a version of an established proverbial saying. In the form: ‘Strong disease requireth a strong medicine’, ODP traces it to 1539. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, IV.i.68 (1594), there is: ‘I do spy a kind of hope, / Which craves as desperate an execution / As that which we would prevent.’ Shakespeare also alludes to the saying on two other occasions.

desperation, pacification, expectation, acclamation, realization – ‘it’s Fry’s’ In the UK, advertisements for Fry’s chocolate for many years after the First World War featured the faces of five boys anticipating a bite and coupled them with these descriptive words.

destiny See DATE WITH.

Deutschland über Alles [Germany before/beyond everything] National slogan in Germany by 1900. ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles’ was originally the title of a poem (1841) by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874). Sung to Haydn’s tune for the Austrian national anthem, the poem became the German national anthem between 1922 and 1945. It was reinstated in 1952 as the national anthem of the German Federal Republic after an attempt to introduce another anthem had failed. Of the original three stanzas, only the third was retained ‘Einig-keit und Recht und Freiheit…’ – according to G. Taddey, Lexikon der deutschen Geschichte. Chiefly, the über Alles disappeared.

devices and desires Phrase from the General Confession in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: ‘We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.’ Devices and Desires is the title of a crime novel (1989) by P. D. James.

devil See AS BLACK AS; BAKER’S DOZEN; BETWIXT THE.

(the) devil can cite scripture for his own purposes Meaning ‘an ill-disposed person may turn even good things to his own advantage’, and in this precise form this is an allusion to Antonio the Merchant in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, I.iii.93 (1596) who says it because Shylock has just been doing so.

(the) devil is beating his wife See IT’S A MONKEY’S.

(the) devil is in the detail See GOD IS IN.

(the) Devil made me do it! The American comedian Flip Wilson became famous for saying this, wide-eyed, about any supposed misdemeanour, when host of a TV comedy and variety hour (1970–4).

(a/the) devil’s advocate Originally, a person who advanced arguments, as though on the part of the Devil, against the canonization of a particular saint. In Latin, this role was known as advocatus diaboli. Now it is used in a very general way about someone who outlines the opposite (and probably unpopular) point of view when something is being discussed. It was being used in this way by 1760. ‘The father made it a point of honour to defend the Enquirer, the son played devil’s advocate’ – J. Bonar, Malthus, I.i. (1885).

(there’ll be the) devil to pay There will be a terrible penalty to pay for pursuing this course of action. Presumably referring to the pacts that people are said to have made with the Devil which always end with the Devil exacting his side of the bargain. It has also been suggested that it has to do with ‘paying’ or ‘caulking the devil’, a seam near a ship’s keel – hence the longer form, ‘The devil to pay and no pitch hot’. ‘And then there will be the devil and all to pay’ – Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella (letter of 28 September 1711). The Devil to Pay is the title of a ballad opera (1731) by Charles Coffey.

diametrically opposed (or opposite or antagonistic) Completely opposed and with no overlapping of views. Kn own by 1645. ‘A sense of determinism that is diametrically opposed to the ruler-class “law-and-order and individualism”’ – Black World (December 1973); ‘Confusion surrounding the US action in Haiti has not destroyed optimism…but the existence of two diametrically opposed political camps did not dampen the euphoria in Port-au-Prince last week’ – Financial Times (24 September 1994).

(a) diamond is forever Originally an advertising slogan, this phrase now has an almost proverbial feel to it. In 1939, the South African-based De Beers Consolidated Mines launched a campaign to promote further the tradition of diamond engagement rings. The N. W. Ayer agency of Chicago (copywriter B. J. Kidd) came up with this phrase. It passed easily into the language. Ian Fleming gave a variation of the phrase as the title of his 1956 James Bond novel, Diamonds are Forever. Technically speaking, however, they are not. It takes a very high temperature, but, being of pure carbon, diamonds will burn. Anita Loos in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) had already enshrined something like the idea in: ‘Kissing your hand may make you feel very, very good but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts for ever’ (diamonds are a girl’s best friend comes not from the Anita Loos novel but from the Jule Styne/Leo Robin song with this title in the 1949 stage musical and 1953 film based on the book).

Dick See AS QUEER AS.

Dickie’s meadow See END UP.

diddy See HOW TICKLED.

did I ever tell you about the time I was in Sidi Barrani? Catchphrase from the BBC radio show Much Binding in the Marsh (1947–53). The programme starred the urbane Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch, and this phrase was used by way of introduction to a boring anecdote, perhaps as a way of changing the subject.

didn’t he do well? From the BBC TV show The Generation Game when presented (1971–8) by Bruce Forsyth (b. 1928) who soon had the nation parroting this and other catchphrases. ‘Didn’t he do well?’ first arose when a contestant recalled almost all the items that had passed before him on a conveyor belt (in a version of ‘Kim’s Game’). However, it is also said to have originated in about 1973 with what a studio attendant used to shout down from the lighting grid during rehearsals. Thirty years later, Forsyth was introducing yet another game show on BBC TV, with the title Didn’t They Do Well? Good game…good game! was encouragement to contestants. Nice to see you, to see you…/ Nice! was the opening exchange of greetings with the studio audience (they supplied the rejoinder). Forsyth would also say Anthea, give us a twirl – an invitation to the hostess, Anthea Redfern (to whom he was briefly married), to show off her skirt of the week.

did she fall or was she pushed? The original form of this inquiry is said to date from the 1890s when it had to do with loss of virginity. Then it was supposedly used in newspaper reports (circa 1908) of a woman’s death on cliffs near Beachy Head. Thorne Smith alluded to the phrase in the title of a novel Did She Fall? (1936). In You Only Live Twice, Chap. 2 (1964), Ian Fleming had: ‘The coroner gave an open verdict of the “Fell Or Was Pushed” variety.’ The line ‘Was she pushed or did she jump?’ occurred in the song ‘Well! Well! Well! (My Cat Fell Down the Well)’ by Shand/Moll/Robertson (1970s). Now applied to both sexes, the formula usually inquires whether they departed from a job of their own volition or whether they were eased out by others. (Hence, the 1970s graffito, ‘Humpty Dumpty was pushed…by the CIA’.)

did the earth move for you? Now only jokingly addressed to one’s partner after sexual intercourse, this appears to have originated as ‘Did thee feel the earth move?’ in Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). It is not uttered in the 1943 film version, however. Headline from The Sport (22 February 1989): ‘Sport Sexclusive On A Bonk That Will Make The Earth Move’.

did you spot this week’s deliberate mistake? As a way of covering up a mistake that was not deliberate, this expression arose from the BBC radio series Monday Night at Seven (later Eight) in circa 1938. Ronnie Waldman had taken over as deviser of the ‘Puzzle Corner’ part of the programme which was presented by Lionel Gamlin. ‘Through my oversight a mistake crept into “Puzzle Corner” one night,’ Waldman recalled in 1954, ‘and when Broadcasting House was besieged by telephone callers putting us right, Harry Pepper [the producer] concluded that such “listener participation” was worth exploiting as a regular thing. “Let’s always put in a deliberate mistake,” he suggested.’ Waldman revived the idea when he himself presented ‘Puzzle Corner’ as part of Kaleidoscope on BBC Television in the early 1950s, and the phrase ‘this week’s deliberate mistake’ has continued to be used jokingly as a cover for ineptitude.

die See BETTER TO.

die another day When the makers of the James Bond movies finally exhausted the title phrases supplied by Ian Fleming, the character’s creator, some tantalizing new ones emerged (see TOMORROW NEVER DIES; WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH). As for Die Another Day (UK/US 2002), it might just be a quotation from A. E. Housman’s poem A Shropshire Lad, No. 56 (1896): ‘But since the man that runs away / Lives to die another day…’

(the) die is cast The fateful decision has been made, there is no turning back now. Here ‘die’ is the singular of ‘dice’, and the expression has been known in English since at least 1634. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he is supposed to have said ‘Jacta alea est’ – ‘the dice have been thrown’ (although he actually said it in Greek). ‘At 4 a.m. on June 5 the die was irrevocably cast: the invasion would be launched on June 6 [1944: the D-Day landings in Normandy]’ – Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (Vol. 5, 1952); ‘Making reality take over in takeovers…Whatever finance directors may argue, the die is cast and they will have to comply from next year’ – The Times (22 September 1994); ‘Ardiles might still be at Tottenham – in one capacity or another – had he buried his pride and accepted a sideways shift after the 3–0 Coca-Cola Cup humiliation at Notts County last Wednesday that, he conceded, ended his Spurs career; “the die was cast” even before Saturday’s home win over West Ham’ – The Guardian (2 November 1994).

(to) die with one’s boots on (sometimes die in one’s boots/shoes) Meaning, to die violently or to be hanged summarily. Used in England by the 18th century and in the American West by the 1870s. From Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chap. 48 (1872): ‘They killed each other on slight provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed themselves – for they held it almost shame to die otherwise than “with their boots on,” as they expressed it.’ The American Western use was firmly ensconced in the language by the time of the 1941 Errol Flynn film They Died With Their Boots On, about General Custer and his death at Little Big Horn. The title of a porn film with Vivien Neves was She Died With Her Boots On (UK 1970s). In one sense, the phrase can suggest an ignominious death (say, by hanging) but in a general way it can refer to someone who dies ‘in harness’, going about his work, like a soldier in the course of duty. ‘To die with one’s boots off‘ suggests, rather, that one dies in bed.

different See AND NOW FOR; AS DIFFERENT.

(to march to a) different drummer To act in a way expressive of one’s own individualism. The concept comes from Henry David Thoreau in Walden (1854): ‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ Hence, presumably: Different Drummer, a ballet (1984) choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan; The Different Drum (1987), a work of popular psychotherapy by M. Scott Peck; and Different Drummer, a BBC TV series (1991) about eccentric American outsiders.

different strokes for different folks This means ‘different people have different requirements’. The proverb is repeated several times in the song ‘Everyday People’ (1968) sung by Sly and the Family Stone. Diff’rent Strokes was the title of a US TV series (from 1978 onwards) about a widowed millionaire who adopts two black boys. Wolfgang Mieder in Proverbs Are Never Out of Season (1993), welcoming this relatively new coinage from the southern USA of the 1950s, comments: ‘It expresses the liberating idea that people ought to have the opportunity to live their lives according to their own wishes. For once we have a proverb that is not prescriptive or didactic. Instead, it expresses the American worldview that individuals have the right to at least some free choice.’

(the) difficult we do immediately – the impossible takes a little longer Bartlett (1980) reported that the motto, now widespread in this form, was used by the US Army Service Forces. The idea has, however, been traced back to Charles Alexandre de Calonne (d. 1802), who said: ‘Madame, si c’est possible, c’est fait; impossible, impossible? cela se fera [Madame, if it is possible, it is done; if it is impossible, it will be done].’ Henry Kissinger once joked: ‘The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer’ – quoted in William Shawcross, Sideshow (1979).

dig for victory Shortage of foodstuffs was an immediate concern in the UK upon the outbreak of the 1939–45 war. On 4 October 1939, Sir Reginald Dorman Smith, the Minister of Agriculture, broadcast these words: ‘Half a million more allotments, properly worked, will provide potatoes and vegetables that will feed another million adults and one-and-a-half million children for eight months out of twelve…So, let’s get going. Let “Dig for victory” be the motto of everyone with a garden and of every able-bodied man and woman capable of digging an allotment in their spare time.’ A poster bearing the slogan showed a booted foot pushing a spade into earth. Consequently, the number of allotments rose from 815,000 in 1939 to 1,400,000 in 1943.

dignity in destiny See RENDEZVOUS.

(the) dignity of labour This phrase refers especially to manual labour, but citations have proved a touch elusive. In his 1887 short story ‘The Model Millionaire’, Oscar Wilde has the artist Alan Trevor say: ‘Why, look at the trouble of laying on the paint alone, and standing all day long at one’s easel! It’s all very well, Hughie, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour.’ At the close of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chap. 1 (1890), Lord Henry Wotton congratulates himself on missing an engagement: ‘Had he gone to his aunt’s, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor…The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.’ Wilde also states in his essay ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ (1891) that ‘a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour’. Booker T. Washington, the Afro-American writer, alludes to the notion in Up from Slavery (1901): ‘No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.’ Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman, Act 2 (1903), has the exchange: ‘I believe most intensely in the dignity of labour’ / ‘That’s because you never done any, Mr Robinson.’ Dorothy L. Sayers has the exact phrase in Gaudy Night, Chap. 3 (1935). The similar honest toil is almost as elusive. Thomas Gray in his ‘Elegy’ (1751) spoke of the useful toil of the ‘rude forefathers’ in the countryside. ‘Useful Work versus Useless Toil’ was the title of a lecture by William Morris (1880s). Useful Toil was the title of a book comprising ‘autobiographies of working people from the 1820s to the 1920s’ (published 1974). The OED2 finds ‘honest labour’ in 1941. Thomas Carlyle spoke of ‘honest work’ in 1866. ‘Honourable toil’ appears in the play Two Noble Kinsmen (possibly by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, published 1634).

dim See AS DIM.

diminishes See HIS DEATH.

dinner See ALL GONG; DOG’S.

dinners See AS MANY.

dire straits Meaning, ‘desperate trouble, circumstances’. A cliché phrase by the early 1980s when this inevitable coupling was compounded by the name Dire Straits being taken by a successful British pop group. ‘In fact, as a Mori survey in one of the Sunday newspapers pointed out, the middle classes in Britain have seldom been in such dire straits’ – The Daily Telegraph (29 June 1994); ‘War heroes’ rents soar…In Staffordshire, another St Dunstaner blinded by shell fire at Normandy in 1944, said: “I can’t understand how they have got into such dire straits”’ – The Mail on Sunday (2 April 1995).

dirt See AGE BEFORE.

dirty See DOM.

dirty work at the crossroads Meaning ‘despicable behaviour; foul play’ (in any location), this is mostly a Hollywood idiom but not quite a cliché. The earliest film citation found is from Flying Down to Rio (US 1933), although P. G. Wodehouse had it in the book Man Upstairs in 1914 and Walter Melville, a 19th-century melodramist, is said to have had it in The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning, or, No Wedding Bells for Him (no date). A Notes and Queries discussion of the phrase in 1917 threw up the view that it might have occurred in a music-hall sketch of the 1880s and that the chief allusion was to the activities of highwaymen. Brewer (1999) suggests that it might have something to do with the old custom of burying people at crossroads. ‘Why couch it in arcane, ridiculous questions? If you think there is dirty work at the crossroads, say so. Don’t shilly shally, don’t ask the minister concerned what information he possesses about what may have occurred at the crossroads on such and such a date’ – Peter McKay, Evening Standard (London) (13 July 1994); ‘Miss Downs’s withdrawal upset the congregation. “This was dirty work at the crossroads and gross discrimination of the worst kind,” a man who attended the service, but refused to take communion, said yesterday’ – The Independent (5 August 1994).

(the) discreet charm of the bourgeoisie A tantalizing title devised by the writer/director Luis Buñuel (1900–83) for his France/Spain/Italy film (1972). In its original French: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie. In his native Spanish: El discreto encanto de la burgesía.

discumknockerating See HOW TICKLED I.

(to) discuss Ugandan affairs To have sexual intercourse. In Private Eye No. 293 (9 March 1973), there appeared a gossip item that launched this euphemism: ‘I can reveal that the expression “Talking about Uganda” has acquired a new meaning. I first heard it myself at a fashionable party given recently by media-people Neal and Corinna Ascherson. As I was sipping my Campari on the ground floor I was informed by my charming hostess that I was missing out on a meaningful confrontation upstairs where a former cabinet colleague of President Obote was “talking about Uganda”. Eager, as ever, to learn the latest news from the Dark Continent I rushed upstairs to discover the dusky statesman “talking about Uganda” in a highly compromising manner to vivacious former features editor, Mary Kenny…I understand that “Long John” and Miss Kenny both rang up later to ascertain each other’s names.’ Later, references to ‘Ugandan practices’ or ‘Ugandan discussions’ came to be used – though probably not far beyond the readership of Private Eye. In a letter to The Times (13 September 1983), Corinna Ascherson (now signing herself Corinna Adam) identified the coiner of the phrase as the poet and critic James Fenton. Richard Ingrams (editor of Private Eye at the time) added the interesting footnote in The Observer (2 April 1989) that the original Ugandan was ‘a one-legged former Minister in President Obote’s Government. When the New Statesman found out that the Eye was going to refer to the incident, representations were made to the effect that the Minister, on the run from Obote, would be in danger if identified. The detail of the wooden leg was therefore omitted, but the expression passed into the language.’ As a further footnote, Nicholas Wollaston wrote to The Observer (9 April 1989) and pointed out that the one-legged performer wasn’t on the run from President Obote but ‘the much-loved chairman of the Uganda Electricity Board, also of the Uganda Red Cross, and an exile for seven years from the tyranny of Idi Amin. When he died in 1986,…a memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields was packed with his friends, among them several who remembered their discussions on Uganda with him, the artificial limb notwithstanding, with much pleasure.’

diseases See DESPERATE.

disgusted, Tunbridge Wells When it was announced in February 1978 that a Radio 4 programme was to be launched with the title Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells (providing a platform for listeners’ views on broadcasting), there was consternation in the Kent township (properly, Royal Tunbridge Wells). The title was intended to evoke the sort of letter fired off to the press between the wars when the writer did not want to give his/her name and so signed ‘Mother of Three’, ‘Angry Ratepayer’, ‘Serving Policeman’, etc. Tunbridge Wells has long been held as the source of reactionary, blimpish views. Derek Robinson, the presenter of the programme, while disliking its title, commented (1989): ‘Why Tunbridge Wells was considered to be stuffier than, say, Virginia Water or Maidenhead, I don’t know. It’s just one of those libels, like tight-fisted Aberdeen, that some places get lumbered with.’ The Kent Courier (24 February 1978) reported the ‘disgust’ that the ‘Disgusted’ label had stirred up in the town. Some people interviewed thought the tag had originated with Richard Murdoch in the BBC radio show Much Binding in the Marsh in which ‘he made much use of his connections with the town’ and was always mentioning it. Frank Muir confirmed, however, in 1997, that ‘Disgusted Tunbridge Wells’ was the name of a character played by Wallas Eaton – with an outraged tone of voice – in Take It from Here (1948–59). Can the phrase ever have been seriously used outside the confines of that programme? Earlier citations are lacking.

dish See CAN DISH IT.

ditchwater See DULL AS.

diver See DON’T FORGET.

divide and rule A way of overcoming opposition – by breaking it down and then conquering it. Originally expressed in Latin: divide et impera. Philip of Macedon and Louis XI of France are among the many who have subscribed to it, but Machiavelli is generally credited with having popularized the maxim.

divine discontent Dissatisfaction with life as it is but which can give rise to hope. Most often used in a religious context and frequently attributed to St Augustine who does not, however, appear to have used the phrase, although at the start of his Confessions he did write: ‘Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.’ The earliest citation to hand is from Charles Kingsley in a pamphlet Health and Education (1874): ‘To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.’ There is a ‘divine despair’ in Tennyson’s The Princess (1847). ‘[Of Mole] Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing’ – Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In the Willows, Chap. 1 (1908).

dizzy heights Meaning, ‘a position of success’ (while hinting at its dangers). Date of origin unknown. A cliché by the mid-20th century. Sometimes used nonfiguratively: ‘Steel-erectors…walk along girders at dizzy heights as though they were strolling along Piccadilly’ – Radio Times (25 July 1958); ‘But with Saints on a roll, Ball dearly wants to climb even further from their dizzy heights of eighth spot, Everton will find it tough’ – Daily Mirror (8 October 1994); ‘Poor Kylie’s having a tough time. Her new single entered the charts at the dizzy heights of number 17, the Virgin 1215 poster campaign screaming “We’ve done something to improve Kylie’s songs. Banned them” started, and now she’s being sued over her last single “Confide In Me”’ – Daily Record (26 November 1994); ‘If the comparisons are extreme it is because England’s cricket has had so little to commend it, or to truly excite its audience, that the dizzy heights of Gough’s daring retaliation deserved exaggeration’ – The Daily Telegraph (3 January 1995).

(to) do a Thomas à Becket This phrase is used to suggest a possible course of action, in a general sense, that is then interpreted by others more positively than might have been the speaker’s actual intention. King Henry II’s rhetorical question regarding Thomas à Becket, ‘Will no man rid me of this turbulent priest?’ (which was acted upon by the Archbishop’s murderers in 1170) is ascribed to ‘oral tradition’ by ODQ in the form: ‘Will no one revenge me of the injuries I have sustained from one turbulent priest?’ The young king, who was in Normandy, had received reports that the Archbishop was ready ‘to tear the crown from’ his head. ‘What a pack of fools and cowards I have nourished in my house,’ he cried, according to another version, ‘that not one of them will avenge me of this turbulent priest!’ Yet another version has, ‘…of this upstart clerk’. An example of the phrase used allusively in a tape-recorded conversation was played at the conspiracy-to-murder trial involving Jeremy Thorpe MP in 1979. Andrew Newton was heard to say, speaking of the alleged plot: ‘They feel a Thomas à Becket was done, you know, with Thorpe sort of raving, “Would nobody rid me of this man?”’ The name is now more commonly written ‘Thomas Becket’.

(to) do a two six ‘To do something very speedily and promptly’. Mr E. Pettinger, Lanarkshire, inquired (1993) about a saying ‘which was common among RAF ground staff when I was serving between 1945 and 1948. It was said when help was required in opening or closing the big hangar doors – “Two Six on the hangar doors!” I can still visualise the response following the shout. One had to stop what one was doing and help to push the enormous sliding doors.’ Partridge/Slang dates it from 1930. Compare one-two, one-two, which a military person might bark with the same intention. Possibly from gun-drill – the number of a command in an instruction booklet? Paul Beale commented: ‘Numbers Two and Six were part of the guncrew in Nelson’s navy, or soon after, whose arduous task it was to heave the cannon back after firing so that Number something-else could swab it out, and yet another Number reload for (probably) Number One to light and fire again.’

doctor See IS THERE A.

Doctor Greasepaint (or Doctor Theatre) will cure me Both versions of this theatrical saying were quoted in obituaries for the actress Irene Handl in November 1987 as phrases that had been used by her. The saying suggests that acting is not only a cure for ailments but also that actors have to be well most of the time to be able to perform their function. The actor Bernard Bresslaw commented in 1991 that his preference was for Doctor Footlights will cure me. Compare (the) best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Doctor Merryman. This nannyish sentiment goes back to Jonathan Swift who included it among the clichés of Polite Conversation (1738). Nay, even further: Apperson has a citation from 1558 and the idea may be found in a poem by Lidgate (1449). The creation of an imaginary doctor’s name can also be found in the nickname Dr Brighton for the healthy seaside resort.

Doctor Livingstone, I presume? Now a catchphrase used on meeting someone unexpectedly or after an arduous journey, this famous greeting was put by (Sir) Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer and journalist, to the explorer and missionary Dr David Livingstone at Ujiji, Lake Tanganyika, on 10 November 1871. Stanley had been sent by the New York Herald to look for Livingstone, who was missing on a journey in central Africa. In How I Found Livingstone (1872), Stanley described the moment: ‘I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob – would have embraced him, only, he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing – walked deliberately to him, took off my hat and said: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” “Yes,” said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.’

doctors wear scarlet Phrase put on invitations to university gatherings – ‘Evening dress with decorations, doctors wear scarlet’ – referring to the scarlet academic robes worn by doctors of law and divinity, and so on. Doctors Wear Scarlet is the title of a novel (1960) by Simon Raven and is set in Cambridge University, involving certain bloody goings-on thereat.

dodgy! Rather as the British upper classes tend to rely on two adjectives – ‘fascinating’ and ‘boring’ – so, too, did the comedian Norman Vaughan (1923–2002) in the 1960s. Accompanied by an upward gesture of the thumb, his swinging! was the equivalent of upper-class ‘fascinating’ and (with a downward gesture of the thumb) his ‘dodgy!’, the equivalent of their ‘boring’. Vaughan commented in 1979: ‘The words “swinging” and “dodgy” came originally from my association with jazz musicians and just seemed to creep into everyday conversation. Then when I got the big break at the Palladium [introducing ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium in 1962] they were the first catchphrases that the papers and then the public seized upon.’ According to Anthony Howard and Richard West, The Making of the Prime Minister 1964, the Labour Party considered using the word ‘swinging’ with an upraised thumb as the basis of its advertising campaign prior to the 1964 General Election. Doubts were expressed, however, whether everyone would get the allusion and only the thumb was used. Although not, of course, the first person to use the word, Vaughan’s use of ‘swinging’ helped to characterize an era – the SWINGING SIXTIES. During his Palladium stint he also introduced the format phrase a touch of the—(‘A touch of the Nelson Riddles’ etc.) Later, he had a TV series called A Touch of the Norman Vaughans. This was established by May 1965 when an undergraduate revue at Oxford was entitled A Touch of the Etceteras (‘The Etceteras’ being a hoped-for Oxford equivalent of the Cambridge Footlights).

does a bear shit in the woods/a dog have fleas/a wooden horse have a hickory dick? See IS THE POPE.

does he take sugar? A principal failing of people when dealing with the physically disabled is encapsulated in the title of the BBC Radio series Does He Take Sugar? This phrase, pinpointed originally by social workers in the title of a booklet, ‘Does he take sugar in his tea?’, was used from the programme’s inception in 1978. It represents the unthinking attitude that leads people to talk to the companions or relatives of those with physical disabilities rather than directly to the people themselves. From ‘Guide to the Representation of People With Disabilities in Programmes’ (compiled by Geoffrey Prout, BBC, 1990): ‘For the record, [the title] has nothing to do with diabetes. It refers to the tendency of able-bodied people to speak over the heads of those with a disability and assume that they are brain-dead. In fact the vast majority of people, no matter what their disability, are perfectly able and willing to speak for themselves.’

does Muhammad Ali own a mirror? See IS THE POPE.

does my bum look big in this? See SUITS YOU, SIR.

doesn’t it make you want to spit! An Arthur Askey catchphrase from the BBC radio show Band Waggon (1938–39) and subsequently. Askey commented (1979) that he was rapped over the knuckles for introducing this ‘unpleasant expression’: ‘[Sir John] Reith [the BBC Director-General] thought it a bit vulgar but I was in the driving seat. The show was so popular, he couldn’t fire me. I suppose I said it all the more!’

(he) doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground One of numerous ‘doesn’t know’ phrases designed to describe another person’s ignorance or stupidity. Mostly American, dating perhaps from the early 1900s and mostly featuring the word arse/ass. The format ‘Doesn’t know…from a hole in the ground’ is used in the film Mr Smith Goes to Washington (US 1939). (He) doesn’t know whether to shit or light a fire is about a person who can’t make up his mind, and apparently this refers to soldiers who, at the end of a long day’s march can’t decide whether to warm up first, or…Surprisingly, Eric Partridge (with his army background) does not appear to know this expression. However, he did include (to describe ignorance rather than indecision): ‘He doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind/whether he wants a shit or a haircut/whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass’, some of which are American in origin. A similar British expression is (he) doesn’t know pussy from a bull’s foot – referring to someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about or is ignorant. Partridge/Slang has doesn’t know a great A from a bull’s foot and ‘does not know A from a battledore/windmill/the gableend’ (these last two versions known since 1401). There is also ‘doesn’t know B from a bull’s foot’ (1401), ‘battledor’ (1565) and ‘broomstick’ (undated). So we are definitely talking about the letter ‘A’ rather than hay. All this means is that somebody cannot distinguish between the letter in a child’s alphabet book and the object in question.

doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun (or enjoying yourself)? Nowadays, an expression more often used ironically when work is hard, boredom rife or there is some other reason for not using the expression straightforwardly. Even in Act 2 of W. S. Gilbert’s The Mikado (1885), it is used ironically. Yum-Yum is to marry Nanki-Poo, but her joy is somewhat tempered by the thought that he is to be beheaded at the end of the month. Nanki-Poo tries to cheer her up by saying that they should call each hour a day, each day a year – ‘At that rate we’ve about thirty years of married happiness before us!’ Yum-Yum (‘still sobbing’) says: ‘Yes. How time flies when one is thoroughly enjoying oneself.’ From The Scotsman (21 November 1991): ‘Can it really be a year since [Margaret Thatcher] became politically semi-detached…Doesn’t time fly when you’re having more fun than you’ve been allowed for a decade and more.’ Another laconic use of the phrase, from The Times (30 0ctober 1985): ‘I go home and look for the invoice. Find it. It was not three months ago but ten months. Doesn’t time fly when your car is falling to bits?’ Of course, ‘Doesn’t time fly?’, on its own, is a version of the ancient tempus fugit [time flies], and the original ‘doesn’t time fly when…’ is an old thought. In Shakespeare’s Othello, II.iii.369 (1604), Iago says: ‘Pleasure, and action, make the hours seem short.’

does she…or doesn’t she? This innuendo-laden phrase began life selling Clairol hair dye in 1955. The brainchild of Shirley Polykoff (who entitled her advertising memoirs Does She…or Doesn’t She? in 1975), the question first arose at a party when a girl arrived with flaming red hair. Polykoff involuntarily uttered the line to her husband, George. As she tells it, however, her mother-in-law takes some of the credit for planting the words in her mind some twenty years previously. George told Shirley of his mother’s first reaction on meeting her: ‘She says you paint your hair. Well, do you?’ When Ms Polykoff submitted the slogan at the Foote Cone & Belding agency in New York (together with two ideas she wished to have rejected), she suggested it be followed by the phrase ‘Only her mother knows for sure!’ or ‘So natural, only her mother knows for sure’. She felt she might have to change ‘mother’ to ‘hairdresser’ so as not to offend beauty salons, and only her hairdresser knows for sure was eventually chosen. It was felt, however, that the double meaning in the main slogan would cause the line to be rejected. Indeed, Life Magazine would not take the ad. But subsequent research at Life failed to turn up a single female staff member who admitted detecting any innuendo and the phrases were locked into the form they kept for the next 18 years. ‘J’, author of The Sensuous Woman (1969), did find a double meaning, as shown by this comment: ‘Our world has changed. It’s no longer a question of “Does she or doesn’t she?” We all know she wants to, is about to, or does.’ A New York graffito, quoted in 1974, stated: ‘Only his hairdresser knows for sure.’

does your mother know you’re out? Put-down addressed to a stupid or presumptuous young person, implying that he or she should not be around without parental supervision. Benham (1948) notes that it: ‘Occurs in verses by Gerald Griffin (author of “The Collegians”) about 1827. It is stated by Griffin’s biographer that the saying was then “a cant phrase in the Metropolis.” It occurs also in a poem in “The Mirror,” 28 April, 1838.’ A hugely popular and enduring catchphrase thereafter. Perhaps more recently a chat-up line addressed to a seemingly under-age girl.

do frogs have watertight assholes? See IS THE POPE.

dog See AGE BEFORE; AS LAZY AS; EVERY.

(the) dog beneath the skin The Dog Beneath the Skin was the title of a play (1935) by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. According to Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Auden (1981), the title was suggested by Rupert Doone and probable alludes to T. S. Eliot, ‘Whispers of Immortality’ (1920): ‘Webster was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin; / And breastless creatures under ground / Leaned backwards with a lipless grin.’ Hence, also, The Skull Beneath the Skin, title of a crime novel (1982) by P. D. James.

(a) dog collar Name applied to the distinctive white collar worn (as though back to front) by a clergyman – a clerical collar. Known as such by 1860s in the UK. Compare putting on the dog, which means putting on airs, fine clothes, and so on. This appears to be an American expression dating from the 1870s – perhaps among college students (especially at Yale) who had to wear stiff, high collars (jokily also known as dog-collars) on formal occasions. Sometimes the phrase is ‘to put on dog’, without the definite article.

dog days Nothing to do with dogs getting hot under the collar, contracting rabies, or anything like that. The ancients applied this label to the period between 3 July and 11 August when the Dog-star, Sirius, rises at the same time as the sun. At one time, this seemed to coincide with the overwhelmingly hot days of high summer. Known as such from ancient times but in English by 1597.

dog eat dog Ruthless, cut-throat competition. Significantly, Brewer (1923) only has the expression ‘dog don’t eat dog’ and compares it to ‘there’s honour among thieves.’ CODP has ‘dog does not eat dog’ in English by 1543 and in Latin – canis caninam non est – in Varro, De Lingua Latina. So, the principal proverb is well established and ‘dog eat dog’ a modern development to describe a situation that is so bad, a dog would eat dog in it. OED2’s earliest citation is from 1931. ‘What makes a man turn animal on a Rugby field when off it he’s gentle and softly spoken? Clarke explains: “Rugby League is a game of survival. It’s dog eat dog”’ – Sunday People (24 November 1974).

dogged determination An alliterative inevitable, meaning ‘grimly tenacious’ (like a dog holding on to something). Known by 1902. A cliché by the mid-20th century. ‘Before Boycott’s appointment can be confirmed, the problem of reconciling his media role with the coaching job needs to be resolved. Given his dogged determination, no one should be surprised if he manages to juggle both roles – unlike his future boss, Illingworth, who had to give up his column in the Daily Express’ – The Sunday Telegraph (30 April 1995); ‘As opinion polls provided the relentless message of a ruling party up to 30 points behind Labour, a dogged determination reigned at Conservative Central Office’ – Financial Times (4 May 1995).

(to be in the) dog house To be in disgrace, out of favour. An American expression (known by 1932), as is shown by the use of ‘dog house’ rather than ‘kennel’. It seems to be no more than coincidence that in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy (1911), it is said of Mr Darling, who literally ends up in a dog house: ‘In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the kennel until his children came back.’

(a) dog in the manger Someone who will not allow another to use something that he has, although he does not use it himself. The allusion is to the fable (in Aesop) about the dog who occupied a manger and would not allow an ox or horse to come and get its hay. One version: ‘A dog, lying in a manger, would neither eat the barley herself nor allow the horse, which could eat it, to come near it.’ It is one of the shortest of the fables and does not even have a moral attached. ‘We find Eamonn de Valera, then the Irish Prime Minister, playing dog-in-the-manger by pointing out a change to the monarchy would require the sanction of the Irish Free State, still a dominion’ – The Independent (30 January 2003).

(the) dogs bark – but the caravan passes by Meaning ‘critics make a noise, but it does not last’. Sir Peter Hall, the theatre director, was given to quoting this ‘Turkish proverb’ during outbursts of public hostility in the mid-1970s. In Within a Budding Grove – the 1924 translation of Marcel Proust’s A l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs (1918) – C. K. Scott Moncrieff has: ‘The fine Arab proverb, “The dogs may bark; the caravan goes on!”’ In the film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (US 1934), ‘Mohammed Khan’ quotes a proverb, ‘The little jackal barks, but the caravan passes.’ Truman Capote entitled a book, The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places (1973).

(looking/dressed up like a) dog’s breakfast (or dinner) When the first saying (known by 1937) suggests something scrappy and the second (known by 1934) something showy, what are we led to conclude about the differing nature of a dog’s breakfast and dinner? A dog’s breakfast might well have consisted (before the invention of tinned dog food) of the left-over scraps of the household from the night before. So that takes care of that, except that there is also the phrase cat’s breakfast, meaning a mess. Could both these derive from a belief that dogs and cats on occasions eat their own sick? A dog’s dinner might well not have differed very much (and, on occasions, can mean the same as a dog’s breakfast) except for the case described in 2 Kings 9 where it says of Jezebel that, after many years leading Ahab astray, she ‘painted her face and tired her head’ but failed to impress Jehu, whose messy disposal of her fulfilled Elijah’s prophecy that the ‘dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel’. Quite how one should distinguish between the two remains a problem, as is shown by this use of both phrases in a letter from Sir Huw Wheldon (23 July 1977), published in the book Sir Huge (1990) and concerning his TV series Royal Heritage: ‘It was very difficult, and I feared it would be a Dog’s Dinner. There was so much…to draw upon…I think it matriculated, in the event, into a Dog’s Breakfast, more or less, & I was content.’

(the) dogs of war Phrase from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, III.i.273 (1599): ‘Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war’. Used as the title of a Frederick Forsyth novel (1974; film UK 1980). Compare the title of the book Cry Havoc! (1933) by Beverley Nichols and the film Cry Havoc (US 1943).

doh (or d’oh)! Exclamation made famous by Homer Simpson in the TV series The Simpsons (1996– ) when admitting his own foolishness or expressing his frustration at the way things have turned out. Of course, he wasn’t the first person to use the word in this way or any other. And it may be the case that it was originally said by one person expressing irritation at someone else’s foolishness. It used to be spelt ‘Duh!’ and dates from the 1940s/50s. The OED in an update defined this version as, ‘Expressing inarticulacy or incomprehension. Also implying that the person has said something foolish or extremely obvious.’ Working backwards in time: in the 1960s, Peter Glaze used to say ‘Doh!’ in sketches with Leslie Crowther in the children’s TV show Crackerjack, as would the Walter Gabriel character in radio’s The Archers; in Anthony Buckeridge’s ‘Jennings at school’ stories (1950s), Jennings’s form master, Mr Wilkins, would say: ‘Doh! You stupid boy!’; in the 1940s’ radio series ITMA, Miss Hotchkiss (played by Diana Morrison) would express exasperation at her boss, Tommy Handley, with a simple ‘Doh!’ In the 1930s, the Scots actor James Finlayson, who appeared in many of the Laurel and Hardy films, would similarly sound off at the duo’s behaviour. In fact, Dan Castellaneta, who provides the voice for Homer Simpson, has apparently said that he based his ‘doh!’ on James Finlayson’s rendering – which is where we came in.

—do it—ly Joke slogan format. On 26 April 1979, the British Sun newspaper was offering a variety of T-shirts with nudging ‘do it’ slogans inscribed upon them. The craze was said to have started in the USA. Whatever the case, scores of slogans ‘promoting’ various groups with this allusion to performing the sexual act appeared over the next several years on T-shirts, lapel buttons, bumper stickers and car-window stickers. In the Graffiti books (1979–86), some seventy were recorded, among them: ‘Charles and Di do it by Royal Appointment’; ‘Donyatt Dog Club does it with discipline and kindness’; ‘Linguists do it orally’; ‘Footballers do it in the bath afterwards’; ‘Gordon does it in a flash’; ‘Chinese want to do it again after twenty minutes’; ‘City planners do it with their eyes shut’; ‘Builders do it with erections’; ‘Windsurfers do it standing up’; ‘Printers do it and don’t wrinkle the sheets’. All this from simple exploitation of the innuendo in the phrase ‘do it’, which had perhaps first been seized on by Cole Porter in the song ‘Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love’ (1928): ‘In shady shoals, English soles do it, / Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it…’, and then in a more personal parody by Noël Coward (1940s): ‘Our leading writers in swarms do it / Somerset and all the Maughams do it…’ Much later came the advertising slogan ‘You can do it in an M.G.’ (quoted in 1983).

(la) dolce vita The title of Federico Fellini’s 1960 Italian film La Dolce Vita passed into English as a phrase suggesting a high-society life of luxury, pleasure and self-indulgence. Meaning simply ‘the sweet life’, it is not clear how much of a set phrase it was in Italian before it was taken up by everybody else. Compare dolce far niente [sweet idleness].

dollar See ALMIGHTY; ANOTHER DAY.

(I’ll bet/lay you) dollars to doughnuts Flexner (1982) states: ‘The almost forgotten terms dollars-to-buttons and dollars-to-dumplings appeared in the 1880s, meaning “almost certain” and usually used in “I’ll bet you dollars-to-buttons/dumplings” or “you can bet dollars-to-buttons/dumplings.” They were replaced by 1890 with the more popular dollars-to-doughnuts (a 1904 variation, dollars-to-cobwebs, never became very common, perhaps because it didn’t alliterate).’ Now obsolete.

DOM Abbreviation of ‘Deo, Optimo, Maximo [To God, most good, most great]’ – what you find inscribed on bottles of Benedictine liqueur. Since the 16th century. Also short for Dirty Old Man. ‘Poor Shirley, she thought, Harry is going to become a prize D.O.M.’ – Will Camp, Ruling Passion, Chap. 12 (1959). This abusive phrase written out in full goes back farther: ‘Mum think’s he’s harmless…In fact she was quite umbrageous with me when I called him a dirty old man’ – Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz, Pt 3, Chap. 14 (1932). In the BBC TV sitcom Steptoe and Son (1962–5, 1970–74), the younger Steptoe (Harry H. Corbett) would say to his father (Wilfred Brambell), ‘You dirty old man’, at the slightest hint of any impropriety on his part.

dominion See AND DEATH.

(the) domino theory The old simile of falling over ‘like a stack of dominoes’ was first used in the context of Communist takeovers by the American political commentator Joseph Alsop. Then President Eisenhower said at a press conference in April 1954: ‘You have broader considerations that might follow what you might call the “falling domino” principle. You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.’ In South-East Asia, the theory was proved true to an extent in the 1970s. When South Vietnam collapsed, Cambodia then fell to the Khmer Rouge and Laos was taken over by the Communist-led Pathet Lao. In 1989, when one Eastern European country after another renounced Communism, there was talk of ‘reverse domino theory’.

done See ALL; BOY DONE WELL.

donkey’s years As in, ‘I haven’t seen her for donkey’s years’ – i.e. for a very long time. Current by 1916. It is not very hard to see that what we have here is a distortion of the phrase ‘donkey’s ears‘ (which are, indeed, long). As such, what we have is a form of rhyming slang: donkey’s = donkey’s ears = years. (Brewer, however, at one time gave the less enjoyable explanation that ‘donkey’s years’ is an allusion to the ‘old tradition’ that one never sees a dead donkey.) This also helps to explain the alternative expression (known since the 1960s), ‘I haven’t seen her for yonks’, where ‘yonks’ may well be a distortion of ‘year’ and ‘donk(ey)s’.

(la) donna è mobile [woman is fickle] From the Duke of Mantua’s aria in Act 3 of Verdi’s opera Rigoletto (1851), also translated as: ‘Woman is wayward / As a feather in the breeze / Capricious is the word’. The libretto is by Francesco Maria Piave (1810–76).

donor fatigue See COMPASSION FATIGUE.

do not adjust your set In the early days of British television, particularly in the late 1940s and early 1950s, technical breakdowns were a common feature of the evening’s viewing. The BBC’s caption normal service will be resumed as soon as possible became a familiar sight. The wording is still sometimes used in other contexts. As standards improved, it was replaced by the (usually more briefly displayed) phrase, ‘There is a fault – do not adjust your set’. Do Not Adjust Your Set was the title of a children’s comedy series on ITV in 1968, devised in part by some of the future Monty Python team.

do not fold, spindle or mutilate Phrase used when punched computer cards began to accompany bills and statements in the 1950s, though Bartlett used to date this somewhat bossy injunction to the 1930s. By the 1960s, the words evoked a machine age that was taking over. By the 1980s, the cards were no longer necessary. A slogan of the 1960s’ student revolution (as seen at the Berkeley riots of 1964) was: ‘I am a human being – do not fold, spindle or mutilate me.’ A graffito (quoted 1974) read: ‘I am a masochist – please spindle, fold or mutilate.’ Do Not Fold Spindle or Mutilate was the title of a film (US 1971).

do not pass ‘Go’ An enduring phrase from Monopoly, the board game invented by an unemployed salesman, Charles Darrow, in 1929, the year of the Wall Street crash. It is based on fantasies of buying up real estate in Atlantic City. Players begin on the square marked ‘Go’, may possibly return to that square to ‘collect $200 salary as you pass’, or land on the ‘Go to jail’ square, or draw a ‘Chance’ card with the penalty: ‘GO TO JAIL / MOVE DIRECTLY TO JAIL / DO NOT PASS “GO” / DO NOT COLLECT $200.’ In the UK version, the sum is £200. A Sunday Mirror editorial (3 May 1981) stated: ‘The laws of contempt are the ones under which editors and other media folk can be sent straight to jail without passing Go.’ A businessman said to a woman who had paid for her husband to be beaten up: ‘If the police find out you are paying, you will go to jail, directly to jail, you will not pass “go” or collect £200’ – report of trial in The Times (30 November 1982).

don’t ask! Phrase usually inserted in parentheses to warn the reader or listener not to inquire too deeply about a piece of information that is being given – because it might be irrelevant to the main point of what is being related or may reveal a fact that is embarrassing to somebody. Noticed by the late 1990s. ‘So whose pointy-headed children did Pendennis spot arriving at the exclusive – £7,000 a year – Dragon School in Oxford the other day? Don’t ask!’ – The Observer (9 February 2003).

don’t ask the price – it’s a penny An early slogan from the great British store Marks & Spencer. The firm had its origins in a stall set up at Leeds market in 1884 by a 21-year-old Jewish refugee from Poland. Michael Marks’s slogan has become part of commercial folklore. It was written on a sign over the penny section – not all his goods were that cheap. He had simply hit upon the idea of classifying goods according to price.

don’t be filthy! Don’t use bad language or make obscene suggestions – but an expression usually applied following a double entendre or something quite innocent. Used by Arthur Askey in the BBC radio show Band Waggon (from 1938).

don’t be fright! Catchphrase of Sirdani, the British radio magician (sic) in circa 1944.

don’t be misled See READY AYE READY.

don’t be vague – ask for Haig Slogan for Haig whisky since about 1936. The origin is to some extent lost in a Scotch mist because many of the John Haig & Co. archives were destroyed during the Second World War. However, the agency thought to be responsible was C. J. Lytle Ltd. An ad survives from 1933 with the wording, ‘Don’t be vague, order Haig’; another from 1935 with ‘Why be vague? Ask for Haig’; and it seems that the enduring form arose shortly after this. It has been jocularly suggested that Haig’s premium brand Dimple (which is sold as Pinch in North America) should be promoted with the slogan, ‘Don’t be simple, ask for Dimple’.

don’t blow on it, Herbert, fan it with your hat What you say to someone who is attempting to drink very hot tea or soup – usually pronounced, ‘Don’t blow on it, ‘Erbert, fan it wiv yer ‘at.’ As so often, the origin seems to lie with Punch, in particular F. H. Townsend’s cartoon from the issue of 9 May 1906. Two young women are seated, for no apparent reason, in front of a labelled bust of Hogarth (locating the scene in Leicester Square, London, where Joseph Durham’s 1875 bust is still in place), and one says: ‘Such a nice young man took me out to dinner last night – such a well-mannered man. D’you know, when the coffee come and ‘e’d poured it on ‘is saucer, instead of blowing on it like a common person, ‘e fanned it with ‘is ‘at!’ The instruction specifically to Herbert may have been inserted in a later music-hall song. A similar line occurs in the Judy Garland movie The Harvey Girls (US 1946).

don’t call us, we’ll call you What theatre directors reputedly say to auditionees, the implication being that ‘we’ will never actually get round to calling ‘you’. Now more widely applied to anyone unwelcome who is seeking a favour. OED2 finds no example before 1969. However, a Punch cartoon on 11 October 1961 showed the European Council of Ministers saying to a British diplomat: ‘Thank you. Don’t call us: we’ll call you’; and in the film The Barefoot Contessa (US 1954), a show business character says: ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ In Some Like It Hot (US 1959), there is a ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Also used in a situation like this is the phrase: we’ll let you know – as during an audition in the BBC radio show Round the Horne (6 June 1966).

don’t come the raw prawn (with me)! ‘Don’t try to put one over on me, delude or deceive me’ – the archetypal Australianism, dating from around the time of the Second World War. A raw prawn is presumably held to be less palatable than a cooked one, but lurking in the background is the abusive Australian use of ‘you prawn!’ to signify that someone is, like a prawn, sexless.

don’t cry for me, Argentina Title phrase of a song from the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita (1976). There is an unexplained conjunction between this line and the inscription (in Spanish) which appears on Eva Perón’s bronze tomb in Recoleta cemetery, Buenos Aires, and begins with words to the effect, ‘Do not cry for me when I am far away.’ But Eva’s body was not returned to Argentina until 1976, and the inscription (of which there is more than one) in Recoleta cemetery bears the date ‘1982’. Could it have been inspired by the song rather than the other way round? Hence, however, Don’t Cry for Me, Sergeant Major, title of a book (1983) by Robert McGowan and Jeremy Hands, giving an ‘other ranks’ view of the Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina.

don’t do anything I wouldn’t do See BE GOOD; IF YOU CAN’T BE.

don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes A suggestion that you should not use up your ammunition (metaphorically speaking) before it can be effective. Or, wait until you are right up close to a problem before you begin to deal with it. In origin, a historical quotation. At the Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) in the American War of Independence, the instruction given by either US General Israel Pitman or, more likely, Colonel William Prescott was: ‘Men, you are all marksmen – don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes.’ However, Frederick the Great had earlier said something very similar at Prague on 6 May 1757.

don’t force it, Phoebe! A catchphrase from the British comedian Charlie Chester (1914–97) in his BBC radio show Stand Easy (1946–50). From that show also came the name Whippit Kwick, a cat burglar in a ‘radio strip cartoon’. Leslie Bridgmont, the producer, recalled in Leslie Bridgmont Presents (1949) how the name swept the country. Wherever he went on bus, Tube or train he would hear someone say, ‘Who’s that over there?’, to which the reply would come, ‘Whippit Kwick!’ Chester remembered (1979): ‘Bruce Woodcock, the boxer, used to run around the streets chanting the jungle chants from the same strip cartoon: Down in the jungle, living in a tent, / Better than a pre-fab – no rent! – that sort of thing. Once at Wembley, just before he threw a right to put the other fellow out for the count, some wag in the audience yelled out, “Whippit Kwick!” he did – and it went in.’ Also from Stand Easy came wotcher, Tish! / wotcher, Tosh! – an exchange between two barrow boys, and yet another catchphrase: ‘This was really a joke on my missus. My wife broke her arm and was sitting in the audience. I told Len Marten to keep coming up to me with the line I say, what a smasher! Then, at the end of the programme, the resolving gag was: “Len, what do you mean by all this, ‘I say, what a smasher’ business?” He said, “The blonde in the third row!” And there’s this broken arm sticking out like a beacon. Strangely enough, I went down to Butlin’s not long after and somebody dropped a pile of crockery. Of course the noise resounded all over the place and everybody shouted “I say, what a smasher!”’ Partridge/Catch Phrases finds the phrase earlier in a 1940 ad for Kolynos toothpaste, and Partridge’s Dictionary of Forces’ Slang (1948) has the word ‘smasher’, meaning an attractive girl, as coming from the Scots ‘a wee smasher’. Iona and Peter Opie in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959) show how the phrase penetrated: ‘Girls, 13, Swansea, 1952’ who recited: ‘I say, what a smasher, / Betty Grable’s getting fatter, / Pick a brick and throw it at her. / If you wish to steal a kiss, / I say, what a smasher.’ Chester also used the phrase I can hear you! which first arose when he noticed somebody talking about him in a rehearsal room.

don’t forget the diver! Of all the many catchphrases sired by the BBC radio show ITMA (1939–49), the one with the most interesting origin was spoken by Horace Percival as the Diver. It was derived from memories that the star of the show, Tommy Handley, had of an actual man who used to dive off the pier at New Brighton, on the River Mersey, in the 1920s/30s. ‘Don’t forget the diver, sir, don’t forget the diver,’ the man would say, collecting money. ‘Every penny makes the water warmer, sir.’ The radio character first appeared in 1940 and no lift went down for the next few years without somebody using the Diver’s main catchphrase or his other one, I’m going down now, sir! – which bomber pilots in the Second World War would also use when about to make a descent. From ITMA’s VE-Day edition (1945): Effects: Knocking – Handley: ‘Who’s that knocking on the tank?’ The Diver: ‘Don’t forget the diver, sir – don’t forget the diver.’ Handley: ‘Lumme, it’s Deepend Dan. Listen, as the war’s over, what are you doing?’ The Diver: ‘I’m going down now, sir.’ Effects: Bubbles. But who was the original diver? James Gashram wrote to The Listener (21 August 1980): ‘My grandfather McMaster, who came from…County Donegal, knew Michael Shaughnessy, the one-legged ex-soldier, in the late 1890s, before he left for the Boer War and the fighting that cost him his leg. About 1910, Shaughnessy…settled in Bebington on the Wirral peninsula… Before the internal combustion engine, [he] used to get a lift every weekday from Bebington to New Brighton in a horse-drawn bread-cart owned by the Bromborough firm of Bernard Hughes. The driver of that cart, apparently, was always envious of the “easy” money Shaughnessy got at New Brighton – sometimes up to two pounds a day in the summer – and would invariably say to him on the return to Bebington, ‘Don’t forget the driver’. Shaughnessy rarely did forget. It was many years later, some time in the early 1930s, that, remembering the phrase so well, he adapted it to his own purposes by changing it to “Don’t forget the diver”, and shouted it to the people arriving from Liverpool.’

don’t forget the fruit gums, mum! A slogan for Rowntree’s Fruit Gums (1958–61) in the UK and coined by copywriter Roger Musgrave at the S. T. Garland agency. Market research showed that most fruit gums were bought by women but eaten by children. Later on, the line fell foul of advertising watchdogs keen to save parents from nagging. Accordingly, ‘Mum’ became ‘chum’.

don’t get mad, get even One of several axioms said to come from the Boston-Irish political jungle or, more precisely, from Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969), father of President Kennedy. Don’t Get Mad Get Even is the title of a book (1983) – ‘a manual for retaliation’ – by Alan Abel.

don’t get me mad, see! Phrase frequently used by those impersonating the actor James Cagney (1899–1986) in gangster mode, but it is not possible to say which of his films he says it in. Sometimes remembered as, ‘Jest don’t make me mad, see?’

don’t get your knickers in a twist! ‘Don’t make a drama out of a crisis; don’t get worked up or confused about something; don’t get excited or you’ll make the problem worse.’ As ‘knickers’ (for female underwear) is solely a Britishism, this phrase has not travelled. In use by 1971.

don’t go down the mine, Daddy A phrase used as a warning to anyone against doing something. When Winston Churchill visited Berlin in 1945 and was preparing to enter Hitler’s bunker, his daughter Mary said to him, ‘Don’t go down the mine, Daddy.’ It comes from a tear-jerking ballad popular with soldiers during the First World War and written by Will Geddes and Robert Donnelly in 1910. The title is, correctly, ‘Don’t Go Down In the Mine, Dad.’

don’t go near the water Phrase (one of two) derived from the nursery rhyme (best known in the USA): ‘Mother, may I go out to swim? / Yes, my darling daughter; / Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, / But don’t go near the water.’ Even Peter and Iona Opie were unable to date this rhyme, but it may not go back beyond 1900. Don’t Go Near the Water was the title of a film (US 1957) about sailors stationed on a South Pacific island – based on a William Brinkley novel. ‘Yes, My Darling Daughter’ was a popular song of 1941 – the Andrews Sisters recorded it – and there was also a play with the title in the late 1930s, subsequently filmed (US 1939). No, My Darling Daughter was the title of a film comedy (UK 1961).

don’t have a cow, man See EAT MY SHORTS.

(you) don’t have to be snippy about it An expression used on a famous occasion. During the night after the US presidential election of November 2000, the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, had phoned his Republican rival, George W. Bush, and announced that he was withdrawing his concession of victory (because of voting irregularities that subsequently delayed a final result for several days). The New York Times reported that Bush said: ‘You mean to tell me, Mr Vice President, that you’re retracting your concession?’ To which Gore responded, ‘You don’t have to be snippy about it.’ The Times’s word expert, William Safire, glossed ‘snippy’ as ‘given to cutting off tiny pieces’, thereby seeming ‘curt, fault-finding, supercilious’ and hence ‘touchy, disrespectful, on your high horse, having an attitude.’ In its original citation by John Bartlett, A Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), ‘snippy’ was categorised as a ‘woman’s word’. It has remained an exclusively American expression since then.

don’t hold your breath! ‘Don’t expect results too soon.’ Perhaps related to the child’s threat ‘I’ll hold my breath until you…’ Not noted before the 1970s. ‘I think the recession’s over, you know’ – ‘I’m not holding my breath.’

don’t just stand there: do something! An amusing exhortation dating from the 1940s, perhaps from services’ slang. Now sometimes reversed: ‘Don’t do anything – just stand there!’

don’t leave home without it Slogan for the American Express credit card. Current in the USA by 1981. Bob Hope once did a parody on a TV special in which he appeared as the Pope carrying his Vatican Express card (‘Don’t leave Rome without it’).

don’t make me laugh Derisive response to something said or suggested. Possibly a shortened version of ‘don’t make me laugh…I’ve got a cracked lip/split lip/cut my lip.’ Partridge/Catch Phrases suggests that these longer phrases, known by the early 1900s, were moribund by the 1940s.

don’t mention the war! Instruction from Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) to the staff of his hotel in BBC TV Fawlty Towers, ‘The Germans’, Series 1, Episode 6 (24 October 1975). Needless to say, he and they go right ahead and do so in this, probably the most remembered episode of the comedy series. It has become a sort of catchphrase. For example, when the England football team defeated Germany 5–1 in a World Cup qualifying game (1 September 2001), both the News of the World and the Independent on Sunday, headlined the story, ‘Don’t mention the score!’

don’t panic! Injunction written on the cover of the eponymous fictional guide featured in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the radio series (1978) and in the preface to the novel (1979) by Douglas Adams. See also under PERMISSION TO SPEAK, SIR!

don’t quote me! Injunction, usually given in a light and informal manner, when advancing a possibly unreliable fact or opinion. Possibly from no earlier than the mid-20th century. ‘Of course, I may be wrong – don’t quote me, for Heaven’s sake’ – Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye (1953).

don’t say Brown – say Hovis Slogan for Hovis bread, from the mid-1930s. One of the firm’s paper bags of that period shows a radio announcer saying, ‘Here’s a rather important correction…I should have said Hovis and not just “brown”.’ The slogan was used in its final form from 1956 to 1964. It still reverberates: in May 1981, when a British golfer, Ken Brown, was deserted by his caddie during a championship, the Sunday Mirror headline was, ‘Don’t Say Brown, Say Novice’.

don’t shoot the pianist! Injunction, in the form of an allusion. Oscar Wilde reported having seen the notice ‘Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best’ in a bar or dancing saloon in the Rocky Mountains – ‘Leadville’ from Impressions of America (1882–3). Hence, the title of the film Tirez Sur Le Pianiste (France 1960), translated as ‘Shoot the Pianist/Piano-Player’ and Elton John’s 1972 record album, Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano-Player.

don’t some mothers have ’em? Comment about a stupid person. The British comedian Jimmy Clitheroe (1916–73) was a person of restricted growth and with a high-pitched voice who played the part of a naughty schoolboy until the day he died. The BBC radio comedy programme The Clitheroe Kid, which ran from 1957 to 1972, popularized an old Lancashire – and possibly general North Country – saying, ‘Don’t some mothers have ’em?’ In the form ‘Some mothers do ‘ave ’em’, the phrase was used in the very first edition of TV’s Coronation Street (9 December 1960) and later as the title of a series on BBC TV (1974–9) in which Michael Crawford played an accident-prone character, Frank Spencer.

don’t speak to the man at the wheel Injunction to persons travelling by boat or ship not to distract the helmsman. There are numerous references to this phrase in Punch during the 1880s. All is explained by Lewis Carroll in his Preface to The Hunting of the Snark (1876) where, commenting on the line, ‘Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes’, he notes: ‘The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the [Naval] Code [containing Admiralty Instructions], “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words, “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.” So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done until the next varnishing day. During these intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.’ So, the phrase was merely the shipboard equivalent of the modern instruction not to speak to the driver [of a bus] when the vehicle is in motion. When Stanley Baldwin stepped down as Prime Minister, flushed with (short-lived) success over his handling of the Abdication crisis, he made this statement to the Cabinet (28 May 1937) and later released it to the press: ‘Once I leave, I leave. I am not going to speak to the man on the bridge, and I am not going to spit on the deck.’ Earlier, at his inauguration as Rector of Edinburgh University in 1925, Baldwin had expressed a view of the limitations on the freedom of a former Prime Minister in similar terms: ‘A sailor does not spit on the deck, thereby strengthening his control and saving unnecessary work for someone else; nor does he speak to the man at the wheel, thereby leaving him to devote his whole time to his task and increasing the probability of the ship arriving at or near her destination.’ When Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, he duly quoted Baldwin’s ‘Once I leave…’ words in his own statement to the Cabinet (16 March 1976) and also later released them to the press.

don’t spit – remember the Johnstown flood This Americanism is an admonition against spitting. The Johnstown flood of 31 May 1889 entered US folklore when a dam burst near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and 2,200 died. A silent film, The Johnstown Flood, was made in the USA in 1926. Partridge/Catch Phrases finds that notices bearing this joke were exhibited in bars before Prohibition started in 1919. Safire quotes William Allen White’s comment on the defeat of Alfred Landon in the 1936 US presidential election: ‘It was not an election the country has just undergone, but a political Johnstown flood.’

don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs Meaning, ‘don’t try to tell people things which, given their age and experience, they might be expected to know anyway’. According to Partridge/Slang, variations of this very old expression include advice against instructing grandmothers to ‘grope ducks’, ‘grope a goose’, ‘sup sour milk’, ‘spin’ and ‘roast eggs’. In 1738, Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation had ‘Go teach your grannam to suck eggs’. It has been suggested that, in olden days, sucking eggs would be a particularly important thing for a grandmother to be able to do because, without teeth, it would be all she was capable of. Known since the late 17th century.

don’t throw the baby out with the bath water Meaning, ‘don’t get rid of the essential when disposing of the inessential’. There are several similar English expressions, including ‘to throw away the wheat with the chaff’, ‘to throw away the good with the bad’, but this one seems to have caught on following its translation from the German by Thomas Carlyle in 1849. According to Wolfgang Mieder in Western Folklore (October 1991), the first written occurrence appears in the satirical book Narrenbeschwörung (1512). Chap. 81 is entitled ‘Das kindt mit dem bad vß schitten [to throw the baby out with the bath water].’

don’t try this at home Injunction, usually to young television viewers, not to try to replicate stunts and dangerous activities they have just been shown. Accordingly, Don’t Try This At Home became the title of a British TV programme of which The Guardian (25 January 1999) said: ‘[It] takes itself seriously. Large lumps of the programme are devoted to repeating the title in case viewers try to kill themselves.’ At about this time, the catchphrase warning was noticed in a Dutch text (but in English) describing a somewhat dangerous sexual position. Earlier: ‘As one baffled scientist told his peers over the electronic mail, “Remember, kids, don’t try this at home, unless you want your baby brother to have three arms”’ – The Guardian (12 April 1989).

don’t want it good – want it Tuesday Journalistic motto of editors – and quoted by journalists – suggesting that actual delivery of copy is more important than striving after quality. British, mid-20th century. Compare: ‘Don’t get it right, just get it written’ – James Thurber, Fables of Our Time, ‘The Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing’ (1940).

don’t worry, be happy Injunction. Bobby McFerrin’s song with this title became George Bush’s unofficial campaign theme in the presidential election of 1988 and won the Grammy award for the year’s best song. ‘The landlord says the rent is late, he might have to litigate, but don’t worry, be happy,’ sang McFerrin, in a song which became a minor national anthem, reflecting a feeling in the USA at the time. The Times (8 March 1989) noted: ‘The song has spawned a whole “happy” industry and relaunched the Smiley face emblem that emerged in America in the late 1960s and was taken up in Britain by the acid-house scene last year. Bloomingdales, the Manhattan department store, now features a “Don’t worry, be happy shop”.’ In the form, ‘Be happy, don’t worry’, it was earlier a saying of Meher Baba (1894–1969), the so-called Indian God-Man.

don’t you just love being in control? Slogan from TV advertising for British Gas from 1991. Originally, the ‘control’ was seen to come from the fact that a gas appliance responds more quickly to its operator’s demands than does an electrical one, but the saying soon achieved brief catchphrase status in the UK, not least because of its scope for sexual innuendo. From The Independent (19 October 1992): ‘England signally failed to achieve their stated [rugby union] goals. Perhaps disarranged by their new surroundings, England, who just love being in control, were frustrated by the resilience and organisation of the Canadians.’ From The Daily Telegraph (5 April 1993): ‘Most annoying of all is the circle of fire [in a National Theatre production of Macbeth], like a giant gas ring, which whooshes into jets of flame at certain key moments. It is ludicrously obtrusive and sometimes it doesn’t seem to be working properly, adding to the viewer’s sense of fretful alienation. As Alan Howard stands in the middle of it, looking haggard, you suddenly wonder if the whole dire production is actually an advertisement for British Gas. Will he suddenly flick his thumb and say “Don’t you just love being in control?”’

don’t you know there’s a war on? Reproof delivered in response to complaints and used by (Will) Hatton and (Ethel) Manners portraying a Cockney chappie and a Lancashire lass in their British variety act of the 1940s. Fairly widely taken up, ironically after the Second World War. Somehow or other it found its way into the script of the US film It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), where it is exclaimed by James Stewart. Partridge/Catch Phrases has the similar ‘Remember there’s a war on’ dating from the First World War. In a letter to Cyril Connolly on 19 October 1939, John Betjeman wrote: ‘We must all do our bit. There’s a war on, you know.’

don’t you pour that tea, there will be ginger twins! Injunction expounding the curious superstition that the person who has made a pot of tea should be the one to pour it out. If it was poured by another it would bring ginger twins into the family. There are, in fact, several superstitions concerning the pouring out of tea, especially if it involves two people. Another is that it is bad luck for two people to pour out of the same pot. The journal Folklore (in 1940) reported this as follows: ‘I have often heard…that two women should not catch hold of a teapot at once or one of them will have ginger-headed twins within the year.’

doodah See ALL OF.

doolally tap Mad, of unbalanced mind. ‘Tap’ here is in the sense of ‘heat, fever’ and ‘doolally’ is the spoken form of the Marashtra (India) word ‘deolali’. Fraser & Gibbons, Soldier & Sailor Words (1925), state: ‘Deolali tap (otherwise doolally tap), mad, off one’s head. Old Army.’ Street (1986) describes Deolali as ‘a turn-of-the-century Bombay sanatorium where many British soldiers were detained before being shipped home.’

doom and gloom (or gloom and doom) (merchants) The basic rhyming phrase became especially popular in the 1970s/80s and a cliché almost simultaneously. ‘Doom and gloom merchants’ was part of the ‘travel scribes’ armoury’ compiled from a competition in The Guardian (10 April 1993). An early appearance was in the musical Finian’s Rainbow (1947; film US 1968) in which Og, a pessimistic leprechaun, uses it repeatedly, as in: ‘I told you that gold could only bring you doom and gloom, gloom and doom.’ ‘It was only last month that Mr Alex Park, chief executive of British Leyland, was attacking the news media for “pouring out gloom and doom about the car industry”’ – BBC Radio 4, Between the Lines (9 October 1976); ‘Amongst all the recent talk of doom and gloom one thing has been largely overlooked…’ – Daily Telegraph (7 November 1987); ‘The doom-and-gloom merchants would have us convinced that only an idiot would ever invest another hardearned penny in property’ – Daily Record (7 March 1995); ‘Yet athletics usually gets its own back on the doom-and-gloom merchants, and can do so here when people such as Privalova and Johnson take the stage’ – The Guardian (10 March 1995).

doomed See MANY MANY TIMES.

(to) do one’s own thing A 1960s’ expression, meaning ‘establish your own identity/follow your own star’, which is said to have been anticipated by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), the American poet and essayist. The passage from his ‘Essay on Self Reliance’ actually states: ‘If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it…under all these screens, I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are…But do your […] thing, and I shall know you.’ ‘With surpassing ease and a cool sense of authority, the children of plenty have voiced an intention to live by a different ethical standard than their parents accepted…To do one’s own thing is a greater duty than to be a useful citizen’ – Time Magazine (29 August 1969).

doornail See DEAD AS A.

doors See BEHIND CLOSED.

(the) doors of perception Phrase from William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (circa 1790): ‘If the doors of perception [i.e. the senses] were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ This view was seized upon by proponents of drug culture in the 1960s. The Doors of Perception had been the title given to Aldous Huxley’s book (1954) about his experiments with mescalin and LSD. From the phrase was also derived the name of the US vocal/instrumental group The Doors.

Dorothy See IS SHE A.

do that thing (or small thing)! ‘How nice of you to offer to do that!’ Or, ‘Please go ahead!’ Or ‘Thanks, yes!’ Current in the UK 1950s/60s.

do the right thing Do the Right Thing was the title of a film (US 1989) about Afro-American people in a Brooklyn slum. From Harper’s Index (January 1990): ‘Number of times the phrase “do the right thing” has been used in Congress since Spike Lee’s film was released last June: 67 / Number of times the phrase was used in reference to congressional pay rise: 16 / Number of times it was used in reference to racial issues: 1.’ The British English equivalent would be do the decent thing (known by 1914), although ‘do the right thing’ seems almost as well established (known by the 1880s). Is there a connection with First World War epitaphs, ‘He trusted in God and tried to do the right’ or with the older motto ‘Trust in God, and do the Right’?

do they know it’s Christmas? Referring to those suffering from famine. This was the question posed in the title of a song written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in 1984. Performed by Band Aid – an ad hoc group of pop singers and musicians – it became the UK Christmas No. 1 record in 1984 and again in 1989. In 1984, by drawing attention to those suffering in the Ethiopian civil war and famine, it gave rise to the Band Aid concert in July 1985.

(a) Double Diamond works wonders Slogan for Double Diamond beer in the UK, from 1952. The double alliteration may have a lot to do with it, but it was surely the singing of the slogan to the tune of ‘There’s a Hole in my Bucket’ that made it one of the best-known of all beer slogans.

(a) double whammy A two-part or twopronged blow, difficulty or disadvantage. Until the General Election of 1992, few people in Britain were familiar with the phrase. Then the Conservative Party introduced a poster showing a boxer wearing two enormous boxing gloves, labelled ‘1. More tax’ and ‘2. Higher prices’. The overall slogan was ‘LABOUR’S DOUBLE WHAMMY’. This caused a good deal of puzzlement in Britain, though the concept of a ‘double whammy’ had been known in the USA since the 1950s. DOAS traces the word to Al Capp’s ‘L’il Abner’ comic strip where a ‘whammy’ was the evil-eyed stare of the character Eagle Eye Feegle. He was able to render people motionless and speechless merely by looking at them. A stare with one eye was called a ‘whammy’, but in emergencies he could use both eyes, hence ‘double whammy’.

double your pleasure, double your fun