A Word In Your Shell-Like

au reservoir! A jokey valediction (obviously based on au revoir) popularized by E. F. Benson in his Lucia novels of the 1920s. The phrase may have existed before this, possibly dating from a Punch joke of the 1890s.

(an) auspicious occasion Cliché used in speech-making or at any time when portentousness or pomposity is demanded. In fact, almost any use of the word ‘auspicious’ is a candidate for clichédom: ‘Drinking around the imposing stone in order to celebrate some auspicious occasion’ – Charles T. Jacobi, The Printers’ Vocabulary (1888); ‘An auspicious debut on the platform was made the other day by Mr Winston Churchill, elder son of the late Lord Randolph Churchill’ – Lady (5 August 1897); ‘What about a glass of sherry to celebrate the auspicious occasion?’ – ‘Taffrail’, Pincher Martin (1916); ‘The longer the game wore on the more obvious it became that Forest could not even rise to this auspicious occasion, much as they yearned to give their manager the mother and father of all send-offs’ – The Sunday Times (2 May 1993).

Austin Reed service See IT’S ALL PART OF THE SERVICE.

Australia See ADVANCE.

author! author! The traditional cry of an audience summoning the playwright whose work it has just watched to come on the stage and receive its plaudits. Date of origin unknown. ‘After the final curtain [at the first night of Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)] the applause was long and hearty, and Wilde came forward from the wings to cries of “Author!”’ – Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde, Chap. 14 (1987); Author! Author! – title of a book (1962) by P. G. Wodehouse.

avoid ‘five o’clock shadow’ The expression ‘five o’clock shadow’ for the stubbly growth that some dark-haired men acquire on their faces towards the end of the day would appear to have originated in adverts for Gem Razors and Blades in the USA before the Second World War. A 1937 advert added: ‘That unsightly beard growth which appears prematurely at about 5 pm looks bad.’ The most noted sufferer was Richard Nixon, who may have lost the TV debates in his US presidential race against John F. Kennedy in 1960 as a result. In his Memoirs (1978), Nixon wrote: ‘Kennedy arrived…looking tanned, rested and fit. My television adviser, Ted Rodgers, recommended that I use television make-up, but unwisely I refused, permitting only a little “beard stick” on my perpetual five o’clock shadow.’

(to) avoid---like the plague To avoid completely, to shun. The OED2 finds the poet Thomas Moore in 1835 writing, ‘Saint Augustine…avoided the school as the plague’. The 4th-century St Jerome is also said to have quipped, ‘Avoid as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.’ A well-established cliché by the mid-20th century. It may have been Arthur Christiansen, one of the numerous former editors of the Daily Express about that time, who once posted a sign in the office saying: ‘ALL CLICHÉS SHOULD BE AVOIDED LIKE THE PLAGUE.’

Avon calling! A slogan first used in the USA in 1886. The first Avon Lady, Mrs P. F. A. Allre, was employed by the firm’s founder, D. H. McConnell, to visit customers at home and sell them cosmetics.

award-winning---As used in promotion, especially of theatre, films and publishing. Depressing because it does not describe its subject in any useful way. Almost any actor in a leading role is likely to have received one of the many theatrical awards available at some time, just as any writer may (however illegitimately) be called a ‘best-selling author’ if more than just a few copies of his or her books have been sold. The phrase was in use by 1962. From the Evening Standard (London) (17 February 1993): ‘Why go on about the latest “award-winning documentary maker”? If you get a documentary on television, you win an award: it goes with the territory.’ ‘Giles Cooper, who died nearly twenty years ago, is described in today’s Times as “award-winning playwright Giles Cooper”. I’d have thought one of the few things to be said in favour of death was that it extinguished all that’ – Alan Bennett, diary entry for 30 June 1984, quoted in Writing Home (1994); ‘Awardwinning actor Michael Gambon can also be seen…David Hare has written many successful plays and screenplays, including his award-winning trilogy…the Pulitzer Prize winning author, John Updike…’ – Royal National Theatre brochure (26 June–28 August 1995); ‘We also introduce some new writers this week. Allison Pearson, the award-winning TV Critic of the year, joins us from the Independent on Sunday…Kenneth Roy, another new award-winning voice…will be writing a personal weekly peripatetic notebook’ – The Observer (27 August 1995).

away See AND AWAY.

aw, don’t embarrass me! British ventriloquist Terry Hall (b. 1926) first created his doll, Lenny the Lion, from a bundle of fox fur and papier-mâché – with a golf ball for a nose – in 1954. He gave his new partner a gentle lisping voice, and added a few mannerisms and a stock phrase that emerged thus: ‘He’s ferocious! (drum roll) / He’s courageous! (drum roll) / He’s the king of the jungle! (drum roll) / – Aw, don’t embarrass me! (said with a modest paw over one eye).’ Unusually for the originator of a successful phrase, Terry Hall said (in 1979) that he made sure he did not overuse it and rested it from time to time.

awful See AMUSING.

awkward See AS AWKWARD.

(the) awkward age Adolescence – when one is no longer a child but not yet a fully fledged adult. Current by the late 19th century and possibly a development of the French l’âge ingrat. Hence, The Awkward Age, the title of a novel (1899) by Henry James.

(the) awkward squad Of military origin and used to denote a group of difficult, uncooperative people, the phrase originally referred to a squad that consisted of raw recruits and older hands who were put in it for punishment. The phrase may also have been applied to a group of soldiers who are briefed to behave awkwardly and in an undisciplined fashion in order to test the drilling capabilities of an officer under training. Sloppy in Our Mutual Friend (1864–5) is described by Charles Dickens as ‘Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life’. The dying words of the Scots poet Robert Burns in 1796 are said to have been, ‘John, don’t let the awkward squad fire over me’ – presumably referring to his fear that literary opponents might metaphorically fire a volley of respect, as soldiers sometimes do over a new grave.

(I) awoke one morning and found myself famous Byron’s famous comment on the success of the first two cantos of Childe Harold in 1812 has become an expression in its own right. It was first quoted in Thomas Moore, The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830).

AWOL ‘Absent WithOut Leave’ – unwarranted absence from the military for a short period but falling short of actual desertion. This expression dates from the American Civil War when offenders had to wear a placard with these initials printed on it. During the First World War, the initials were still being pronounced individually. It does not mean ‘absent without official leave’.

(to have an) axe to grind The expression meaning ‘to have an ulterior motive, a private end to serve’ would appear to have originated with an anecdote related by Benjamin Franklin in his essay ‘Too Much for Your Whistle’. A man showed interest in young Franklin’s grindstone and asked how it worked. In the process of explaining, Franklin – using much energy – sharpened up the visitor’s axe for him. This was clearly what the visitor had had in mind all along. Subsequently, Franklin (who died in 1790) had to ask himself whether other people he encountered had ‘another axe to grind’. Cited as a ‘dying metaphor’ by George Orwell in ‘Politics and the English Language’ in Horizon (April 1946). ‘Manhattan Cable showed that some of the most ordinary people are very good on TV. In Britain, where the idea of access is a familiar one, it’s still a very mediated and restricted thing where you have to have a politically correct axe to grind’ – The Guardian (24 October 1991).

aye, aye, that’s yer lot! Signing-off line of Jimmy Wheeler (1910–73), a British Cockney comedian with a fruity voice redolent of beer, jellied eels and winkles. He would appear in a bookmaker’s suit, complete with spiv moustache and hat, and play the violin. At the end of his concluding fiddle piece, he would break off and intone these words.

aye caramba See EAT MY SHORTS.

aye, well – ye ken noo! ‘Well, you know better now, don’t you!’ – said after someone has admitted ignorance or has retold an experience that taught a lesson. It is the punch line of an old Scottish story about a Presbyterian minister preaching a hell-fire sermon whose peroration went something like this: ‘And in the last days ye’ll look up from the bottomless pit and ye’ll cry, “Lord, Lord, we did na ken [we did not know]”, and the Guid Lord in his infinite mercy will reply…“Aye, well – ye ken noo!”’

ay thang yew! A distinctive pronunciation of ‘I thank you!’ picked up from the cry of London bus conductors by Arthur Askey for the BBC radio show Band Waggon (1938–39) and used by him thereafter. He commented (1979): ‘I didn’t know I was saying it till people started to shout it at me.’ Later, as I Thank You, it became the title of one of Askey’s films (1941).

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