A Word In Your Shell-Like

all balls and bang me arse! Sheer nonsense. An intensifier of the basic all balls! British use, probably since the 1910s.

(I’m) all behind like the cow’s tail What people say when they are behind with their tasks. The expression ‘all behind like a cow’s tail’ has also been used to describe a person who is always last or is of a daydreaming disposition. ‘C. H. Rolph’ wrote in London Particulars (1980): ‘Grandma Hewitt [his grandmother] was a walking repository, rather than a dictionary, of clichés and catchphrases; and I have often wished she could have been known to Mr Eric Partridge during the compilation of his delectable dictionaries. Both she and I…could pre-date many of [his] attributions. Here are four examples…all of which were common currency in my Edwardian childhood: “Just what the doctor ordered”, “Are you kidding?”, “Cheats never prosper”, and “All behind like a cow’s tail”.’ There is also, of course, the expression ‘All behind like Barney’s bull’.

all bitter and twisted Said about someone who is psychologically mixed-up and shows it. Sometimes made light of in the form ‘all twitter and bisted’. Since the 1940s, at least.

all contributions gratefully received As with please give generously/all you can, this is a standard phrase from charitable appeals for money. But it is also used jokingly when accepting gifts of almost anything – another helping of food, even a sexual favour. Probably since the first half of the 20th century.

—, all day! A response to the question ‘What day is it?’ or ‘What’s the date?’ For example, ‘Tuesday/the 13th…all day!’ In use since the late 19th century.

(it’s) all done and dusted Meaning, ‘that task has been completed’. Heard in a Yorkshire hotel in 1996, but much older.

(it’s) all done with mirrors Used as a way of describing how anything has been accomplished when the method is not obvious. Originally, a way of explaining how conjuring tricks and stage illusions were performed when some, indeed, were done using mirrors – but without going into detail. Admiration, but also a suspicion of trickery, is implicit in the phrase. Noël Coward uses it in Private Lives (1930); They Do It With Mirrors is the title of an Agatha Christie thriller (1952). Compare SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

all dressed up and nowhere to go A phrase used to describe forlorn indecision comes (slightly altered) from a song popularized by the American comedian Raymond Hitchcock in The Beauty Shop (New York 1914) and Mr Manhattan (London 1915): ‘When you’re all dressed up and no place to go, / Life seems dreary, weary and slow.’ The words gained further emphasis when they were used by William Allen White to describe the Progressive Party following Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to retire from presidential competition in 1916. He said it was: ‘All dressed up with nowhere to go.’ The OED2 has the phrase starting life in a song by ‘G. Whiting’ (1912), ‘When You’re All Dressed Up and Have No Place to Go’. But Lowe’s Directory of Popular Music ascribes the song to Silvio Hein and Benjamin Burt.

all dressed up like a Christmas tree Gaudily attired – not a compliment. Since the late 19th century.

all dressed up like a pox-doctor’s clerk Flashily attired – not a compliment. Since the late 19th century. Presumably the implication is that a pox-doctor’s clerk would have plenty of money and that he would not spend it on tasteful clothing.

allegedly A single word slipped into libellous or slanderous statements to defuse them on the BBC TV topical quiz, Have I Got News For You (1990– ). Principally employed by the original host, Angus Deayton. The approach had much earlier been used by David Frost on BBC TV, That Was The Week That Was (1962–4).

alley See I WOULDN’T LIKE TO MEET.

all for one and one for all [tous pour un, un pour tous] The motto of the Three Musketeers in the novel Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844–5) by Alexandre Dumas. It had appeared earlier in Shakespeare’s Lucrece, lines 141–4 (1594), as: ‘The aim of all is but to nurse the life / With honour, wealth and ease, in waning age; / And in this aim there is much thwarting strife / That one for all, or all for one we gage [= pledge].’ Dumas apparently derived the motto from a form of words he recorded in an account of a journey to Switzerland (1833). In the Berne Parliament, the pledge given by representatives of the regions who formed the basis of the Swiss federation in AD 1291 is rendered as ‘Einer für alle, alle für einen.’ Compare ‘Each for all and all for each’ – Co-Operative Wholesale Society (UK, 20th century).

all fur coat and no knickers Given to show and having no modesty; poverty concealed in an effort to keep up appearances; elegant on the outside but sleazy underneath, when describing a certain type of woman. Encountered in a Welsh context (1988), it was also the title of play that toured the UK in the same year. A variant (1993), said to come from Lancashire (or, at least, from the North of England), is: ‘Red hat, no knickers’. A similar expression is all kid gloves and no drawers This last was given as an example of colourful Cockney bubble-pricking by the actor Kenneth Williams in Just Williams (1985). He said it was used in his youth (1930s) to denote the meretricious. ‘Silk stockings and no knickers’ is another version.

all gas and gaiters To do with the church, especially the higher clergy. All Gas and Gaiters was the title of a BBC TV comedy series about the clergy (1966–70). The title was taken from Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 49 (1838–9): ‘All is gas and gaiters.’ Gaiters (leg coverings below the knee) have been traditionally associated with bishops. ‘Gas’ presumably hints at their accustomed volubility.

all gong and no dinner All talk and no action. What you would say of a loud-mouthed person, somewhat short on achievement. Current by the mid-20th century. Partridge/Slang has a citation from BBC Radio’s The Archers in 1981. Michael Grosvenor Myer, Cambridgeshire (1999), produced a Texan variant: ‘All hat and no cattle.’

all good things must come to an end A proverbial expression meaning ‘pleasure cannot go on for ever’. Spoken at the completion of absolutely any activity that is enjoyable (but usually said with a touch of piety). CODP points out that the addition of the word ‘good’ to this proverb is a recent development. ‘To all things must be an end’ can be traced back to the 15th century. There is a version from 1440, and, as ‘Everything has an end’, the idea appears in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (1385). The Book of Common Prayer version of Psalm 119:96 is: ‘I see that all things come to an end.’

all hands above the bedclothes, girls See HANDS OFF COCKS.

all hands on deck! Everybody help. Obviously of naval origin – but now used in any emergency, serious or slight, domestic or otherwise. Since the 19th century?

all hell broke loose Pandemonium broke out. This descriptive phrase probably derives its popularity from its use in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Bk 4, line 917 (1667), when the Archangel Gabriel speaks to Satan: ‘Wherefore with thee / Came not all hell broke loose.’ But Milton had been anticipated in this by the author of a Puritan pamphlet, Hell Broke Loose: or, a Catalogue of Many of the Spreading Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies of These Times, for Which We are to be Humbled (1646). Also, in Robert Greene’s play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (circa 1589), the character Miles has the line: ‘Master, master, master up! Hell’s broken loose.’ And, as ‘I thinke, hell breake louse’, it occurs in a play called Misogonus (1577). As an idiomatic phrase it was certainly well established by 1738 when Jonathan Swift compiled his Polite Conversation. There is ‘A great Noise below’ and Lady Smart exclaims: ‘Hey, what a clattering is there; one would think Hell was broke loose’.

all human life is there Advertising line used to promote the News of the World newspaper (circa 1958) and taken from Henry James, ‘Madonna of the Future’ (1879): ‘Cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats – all human life is there.’ In 1981, Maurice Smelt, the advertising copywriter, commented: ‘“All human life is there” was my idea, but I don’t, of course, pretend that they were my words. I simply lifted them from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. I didn’t bother to tell the client that they were from Henry James, suspecting that, after the “Henry James – who he?” stage, he would come up with tiresome arguments about being too high-hat for his readership. I did check whether we were clear on copyright, which we were by a year or two…I do recall its use as baseline in a tiny little campaign trailing a series that earned the News of the World a much-publicized but toothless rebuke from the Press Council. The headline of that campaign was: “‘I’ve been a naughty girl,’ says Diana Dors”. The meiosis worked, as the News of the World knew it would. They ran an extra million copies of the first issue of the series.’

all I know is what I read in the papers I’m just an ordinary guy. From a saying much used by Will Rogers, the American cowboy comedian of the 1920s. For example, from The Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President (1927): ‘Dear Mr Coolidge: Well all I know is just what I read in the papers.’

(it’s) all in a lifetime (or all in one’s lifetime). ‘That’s life, IT’S ALL PART OF LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT’ – reflective, philosophical phrase, implying resignation to whatever happens or has happened. Mostly American use? Since 1849. P. G. Wodehouse concludes a letter (23 July 1923) in which he describes how he was knocked down by a car: ‘But, my gosh! doesn’t it just show that we are here today and gone tomorrow!…Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime!’ Hence, the title of Walter Allen’s novel All In a Lifetime (1959).

(it’s) all in the family A saying with the implication that there’s no need to be over-punctilious or stand on ceremony, or fuss too much about obligations, because nobody outside the family is affected and those who are in the family will understand. For example, ‘it’s okay for me to borrow money or clothing from my sister without asking her first…because it’s all in the family.’ Compare, ‘We are all friends here!’ All In the Family was the title of the American TV version (1971–83) of the BBC’s sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. The respective main characters were Archie Bunker and Alf Garnett, racists and bigots both. The phrase had a double meaning as the show’s title: that Archie’s rants would be mortifying if overheard by anyone outside the family and that such wildly different types of people find themselves related to each other. There is not a trace of the phrase in the OED2. However, there is an 1874 citation, ‘all outside the family, tribe or nation were usually held as enemies’, which may hint at the possible existence of an opposite construction. The phrase occurs in Chap. 25 of James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (1823): ‘David says, in the Psalms – no, it was Solomon, but it was all in the family – Solomon said, there was a time for all things; and, in my humble opinion, a fishing party is not the moment for discussing important subjects.’ Then there is Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 21 (1851) in which Elijah is trying to warn Ishmael and Queequeg against the Pequod and its captain: ‘“Morning to ye! morning to ye!” he rejoined, again moving off. “Oh! I was going to warn ye against – but never mind, never mind – it’s all one, all in the family too; – sharp frost this morning, ain’t it?”’ From Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, Chap. 9 (1893): ‘It was old Lovat that managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it’ll be all in the family.’ From Bret Harte, A Ward of Colonel Starbottle’s (1903): ‘“Don’t mind us, Colonel,” said Judge Beeswinger, “it’s all in the family here, you know! And – now I look at the girl – hang it all! she does favor you, old man. Ha! ha!”’ From Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, Chap. 32 (1904): ‘All hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my own vessel. It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.’ All these citations – even the Stevenson – confirm a likely American origin for the phrase. It is hardly known elsewhere.

all jam and Jerusalem A popular misconception of the local Women’s Institute groups in the UK is that their members are solely concerned with making jam, flower arranging and singing the Blake/Parry anthem ‘Jerusalem’. This encapsulation is said to date from the 1920s. Simon Goodenough’s history of the movement was called Jam and Jerusalem (1977).

all joints on the table shall/will be carved Table manners instruction, i.e. elbows off the table. Casson/Grenfell (1982) has it – as well as, ‘No uncooked joints on the table, please.’

all mouth and trousers Describing a type of man who is ‘all talk’ rather than sexually active or successful (compare the earlier ‘all prick and breeches’). Since the mid-20th century? Slanguage describes it now as ‘an insulting (non-sexual) catch phrase’. From BBC radio’s Round the Horne (15 May 1966): ‘There he goes, his kilt swinging in the breeze – all mouth music and no trousers.’

all my eye and Betty Martin Meaning, ‘nonsense’. OED2 finds a letter written in 1781 by one ‘S. Crispe’ stating: ‘Physic, to old, crazy Frames like ours, is all my eye and Betty Martin – (a sea phrase that Admiral Jemm frequently makes use of)’. Grose (1785) has ‘That’s my eye betty martin, an answer to any one that attempts to impose or humbug.’ The phrase is used in Punch (11 December 1841). Apperson has ‘Only your eye and Miss Elizabeth Martin’ in 1851. The shorter expressions ‘all my eye’ or ‘my eye’ predate this. As to how it originated, Brewer (1894) has the suggestion (from Joe Miller, 1739) that it was a British sailor’s garbled version of words heard in an Italian church: ‘O, mihi, beate Martine [Oh, grant me, blessed St Martin]’, but this sounds too ingenious and, besides, no prayer is known along those lines. Probably there was a Betty Martin of renown in the 18th century (Partridge/Catch Phrases finds mention of an actress with the name whose favourite expression is supposed to have been ‘My eye!’) and her name was co-opted for popular use. Some people use a ‘Peggy Martin’ version.

all of a doodah In a state of dithering excitement. Known by 1915. From P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Chap. 14 (1954): ‘A glance was enough to show me that he [Uncle Tom] was all of a doodah.’

all of a tiswas Meaning, ‘confused, in a state’. Known by 1960. This might be from an elaboration of ‘tizz’ or ‘tizzy’ and there may be a hint of ‘dizziness’ trying to get in. But no one really knows. The acronym of ‘Today Is Saturday, Wear A Smile’ seems not to have anything to do with the meaning of the word and to have been imposed later. The acronym-slogan was the apparent reason for the title Tiswas being given to a children’s TV show (UK 1974–82), famous for its buckets-of-water-throwing and general air of mayhem. Broadcast on Saturday mornings, its atmosphere was certainly noisy and confused.

all one’s Christmasses have come at once When one has benefited from lots of luck or been snowed under with gifts. Since the second half of the 20th century?

(to say that) all one’s geese are swans Meaning, ‘to exaggerate or overestimate the worth of one’s children/pupils/anyone dear to one – and to see them in an especially rosy light.’ Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, ‘Democritus to the Reader’ (1621), has ‘All his Geese are swannes’. The actor David Garrick wrote to the Duke of Devonshire about a visit to Milan (1763) and the warmth of his reception by the Governor of Lombardy: ‘You would think, as You Us’d to say to me, that all my Geese were Swans…there was no Civility that I did not receive from him.’ Horace Walpole wrote of Sir Joshua Reynolds (in a letter of 1786): ‘All his own geese are swans, as the swans of others are geese.’

all our yesterdays From Macbeth’s speech in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, V.v.22 (1606): ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last syllable of recorded time; / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/ And then is heard no more: it is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.’ This speech has proved a rich source of title phrases. Tomorrow and Tomorrow was a film (US 1932); All Our Yesterdays was the title of Granada TV’s programme (1960–73) devoted to old newsreels and of the actor Edward G. Robinson’s memoirs (1974); The Way to Dusty Death was the title of a 1973 novel by Alastair Maclean; Brief Candles was the title of a collection of short stories (1930) by Aldous Huxley; Told By an Idiot was a 1923 novel by Rose Macaulay; ‘full of sound and fury’ is echoed in the title of William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and The Fury (1929).

all over bar the shouting Almost completely over, finished or decided, except for any talking and argument that will not alter the outcome. Said of a contest or event. Of sporting origin, with the shouting, say, the appeal against a referee’s decision in boxing. Known since 1842 (in the form ‘…but the shouting’). Groucho Marx says ‘All over but the shooting’ in The Cocoanuts (US 1929). A Cole Porter song (1937) has the title ‘It’s All Over But the Shouting’. ‘But if the Rhodesia affair is all over bar the shouting, can the same be said about South Africa?’ – Western Morning News (25 September 1976); ‘“He seems to be giving the impression the pay round is all over bar the shouting. He couldn’t be more wrong,” she said’ – The Times (15 May 1995).

all over by Christmas See BY CHRISTMAS.

all over the place like a mad woman’s underclothes In her book Daddy, We Hardly Knew You (1989), the writer Germaine Greer recalls that, when she was growing up in Australia in the 1940s, this was her mother’s phrase to describe an untidy room. In consequence, Greer used The Madwoman’s Underclothes as the title of a collection of her assorted writings (1986). Partridge/Slang does not find this precise expression but in discussing the phrase ‘all over the place like a mad woman’s shit’ points to the euphemistic variants cited by G.A. Wilkes in A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (1978): ‘…like a mad woman’s knitting…custard…lunch box.’ So, Australian it seems to be.

all passion spent ‘And calm of mind, all passion spent’ – line 1758 (the last line) of Milton’s dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (1671). Hence, All Passion Spent, the title of a novel (1931) by Vita Sackville-West (a study of ageing and independence in old age). ‘The story of it belongs to a later and final book still to be written: of our hero, ambition laid aside, all passion spent, learning to accept defeat, growing old gracefully’ – Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Saviour of the Navy, Preface (1949 edn).

all piss and wind Empty, vacuous – of a man prone to bombast and no achievement, apparently derived from the earlier saying ‘All wind and piss like a barber’s cat’, known by 1800.

all publicity is good publicity A modern proverb dating from at least the 1960s, but probably as old as the public relations industry. Alternative forms include: there’s no such thing as bad publicity; there’s no such thing as over-exposure – only bad exposure; don’t read it – measure it; and I don’t care what the papers say about me as long as they spell my name right. The latter saying has been attributed to the American Tammany leader ‘Big Tim’ Sullivan. CODP includes it in the form ‘Any publicity is good publicity’ and finds no example before 1974. In Dominic Behan’s My Brother Brendan (1965), however, the Irish playwright is quoted as saying, ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.’ James Agate in Ego 7 (for 19 February 1944) quotes Arnold Bennett as having said, ‘All praise is good,’ and adds: ‘I suppose the same could be said about publicity.’

all quiet on the Western Front A familiar phrase from military communiqués and newspaper reports on the Allied side in the First World War. Also taken up jocularly by men in the trenches to describe peaceful inactivity. It was used as the title of the English translation of the novel Im Westen nichts Neues [From the Western Front – Nothing to Report] (1929; film US 1930) by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque. The title is ironic – a whole generation was being destroyed while newspapers reported that there was ‘no news in the west’. Partridge/Catch Phrases hears in it echoes of ‘All quiet on the Shipka Pass’ – cartoons of the 1877–8 Russo-Turkish War that Partridge says had a vogue in 1915–6, though he never heard the allusion made himself. For no very good reason, Partridge rules out any connection with the American song ‘All Quiet Along the Potomac’. This, in turn, came from a poem called ‘The Picket Guard’ (1861) by Ethel Lynn Beers, a sarcastic commentary on General Brinton McClellan’s policy of delay at the start of the Civil War. The phrase (alluding to the Potomac River which runs through Washington DC) had been used in reports from McLellan’s Union headquarters and put in Northern newspaper headlines. All quiet along the Potomac continues to have some use as a portentous way of saying that nothing is happening.

all right for some! Meaning, ‘some people have all the luck!’ – a good-humoured expression of envy. ‘I’m just off to the West Indies for an all-expenses paid holiday’ – ‘All right for some!’ From the mid-20th century.

all roads lead to Rome Whatever route you follow (especially in thinking), you will reach a common objective. The earliest use of this proverb in English is in a treatise by Chaucer on the astrolabe (1391), in which he states, ‘Right as diverse paths leden diverse folk the righte way to Rome’. In Medieval Latin, this was expressed as: ‘mille vie ducunt hominem per secula Romam [a thousand roads lead man for ever towards Rome].’ This reflects the geographical fact that the Roman road system did indeed seem to radiate outwards from Rome.

all rowed fast, but none so fast as stroke A nonsensical compliment relating to effort. In Sandford of Merton, Chap. 12 (1903), Desmond Coke wrote: ‘His blade struck the water a full second before any other: the lad had started well. Nor did he flag as the race wore on: as the others tired, he seemed to grow more fresh, until at length, as the boats began to near the winning-post, his oar was dipping into the water nearly twice as often as any other.’ This is deemed to be the original of the modern proverbial saying – which is used, for example, in its ‘all rowed fast’ form in ‘The Challenge’ episode of the TV adaptation of The Forsyte Saga (1967). The ‘misquotation’ is sometimes thought to have been a deliberate distortion of something written earlier than Coke, by Ouida, ‘designed to demonstrate the lady’s ignorance of rowing, or indeed of any male activity’ – Peter Farrer in Oxford Today (Hilary, 1992). The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985) refers to the ridicule Ouida suffered for ‘her inaccuracies in matters of men’s sports and occupations’, of which this might be one.