A Word In Your Shell-Like

amor vincit omnia [love conquers all] One of the best-known proverbial expressions of all. It is from Virgil’s Eclogues, No. 10, line 69. Chaucer’s Prioress had it on her brooch, as mentioned in ‘The General Prologue’ to The Canterbury Tales.

(—don’t) amount to a hill of beans Meaning, ‘—don’t amount to anything.’ One of the most remembered lines from the film Casablanca (US 1942) is the one in which Rick (Humphrey Bogart) says: ‘Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.’ An earlier use of the ‘hill of beans’ phrase – ‘Ancestors are a poor excuse for not amounting to a hill of beans’ – is quoted in Wolfgang Mieder, Talk Less and Say More: Vermont Proverbs (1986) and OED2 has an 1863 (US) citation of this same version. A parallel expression has ‘row of beans’. From P. G. Wodehouse, Psmith Journalist, Chap. 9 (1915): ‘Look at Everybody’s Magazine. They didn’t amount to a row of beans till Lawson started his “Frenzied Finance” articles.’

Amplex See EVEN YOUR BEST.

amusing, awful and artificial This is reputedly King James II’s description of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, using three words whose meanings have since changed. He meant that it was ‘pleasing, awe-inspiring, and skilfully achieved.’ The earliest citation found is in Simeon Potter’s Our Language (1976). But in William Kent’s An Encyclopedia of London (1937), it is rather Charles II who in 1675 approved a new design for St Paul’s because it was ‘very artificial, proper and useful.’ As all monarchs from King James I to Queen Anne seem to have had the remark ascribed to them, perhaps a true source for this phrase will never be found.

(the) anatomy of—A title format, of which the first notable use is The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) by Robert Burton. That book used the word ‘anatomy’ in an appropriate manner, its subject being a medical condition (anatome is the Greek word for dissection). The modern vogue for ‘anatomies’ of this and that began with the film Anatomy of a Murder (US 1959) and was followed by Anthony Sampson’s book Anatomy of Britain, first published in 1962 and revised a number of times since.

ancestral vices/voices Ancestral Vices is the title of a novel (1980) by Tom Sharpe; Ancestral Voices is the title of the first volume of diaries (1975) by the architectural historian James Lees-Milne (1908–97). Both allude to the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which contains the lines: ‘…Five miles meandering with a mazy motion / Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, / Then reach’d the caverns measureless to man, / And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: / And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far / Ancestral voices prophesying war! / The shadow of the dome of pleasure / Floated midway on the waves; / Where was heard the mingled measure / From the fountain and the caves. / It was a miracle of rare device, / A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!’ The poem as a whole has been ransacked for all subsequent titles of Lees-Milne’s published diaries: Prophesying Peace (1977), Caves of Ice (1983), Midway on the Waves (1985), A Mingled Measure (1994), Ancient As the Hills (1997), Through Wood and Dale (1998), Deep Romantic Chasm (2000), Holy Dread (2001), Beneath a Waning Moon (2003). Compare STATELY PLEASURE DOME.

and all because the lady loves Milk Tray Cadbury’s Milk Tray chocolates have been promoted with this line since 1968. On British TV, the line was the pay-off to action adverts showing feats of James Bond-style daring that climaxed with the presentation of a box of the chocolates to a suitably alluring female.

—and all that ‘And all that sort of thing.’ Apparently the phrase was in the language before Sellar and Yeatman used it in the title of their cod volume of English history, 1066 And All That (1930). See also GOODBYE TO ALL THAT.

and all that jazz ‘And all that stuff, the rest, etcetera’ – often with the dismissive suggestion ‘and all that nonsense, rubbish’. American in origin, popular since 1959. From Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge, Chap. 6 (1968): ‘He [was] so pleased to have me “on the team” and me so happy to be able to do work in Hollywood, California, a life’s dream come true and – as they used to say in the early Sixties – all that jazz.’ All That Jazz was the title of a film (US 1979) about the life and death of a choreographer.

and a special goodnight to you Before becoming a disc jockey on British radio, David Hamilton (b. 1939) was an announcer with a number of independent television companies, including Tyne Tees, ABC and Thames. In the days when TV schedules ended round about midnight, his romantic sign-off became so distinctive that he even made a record with the title – ‘A Special Goodnight to You’ (circa 1967). At about the same time, the sign-off was also used by Barry Aldiss (‘B. A.’) on Radio Luxembourg and subsequently by several other broadcasters.

and awa-a-aay we go! On the Jackie Gleason Show on US television (1952–70), the rotund comic hosted variety acts and would always use this phrase to lead into the first sketch. He had a special pose to accompany it – head turned to face left, one leg raised ready to shoot off in the same direction. Gleason’s other stock (perhaps catch) phrases were how sweet it is!; baby, you’re the greatest!; one of these days…one of these days…; and pow! right in the kisser! He also popularized the word ‘labonza’ for posterior, as in ‘a kick in the labonza’. In The Life of Riley (1949–50), Gleason’s phrase after some stroke of fate was what a revoltin’ development this is!, though this appears to have been taken over by William Bendix, who followed him in the part.

and Death shall have no dominion The title of the notable poem (1936) on immortality by Dylan Thomas is a straightforward allusion to Romans 6:9: ‘Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him.’

and finally…Introduction to the final light or amusing story on Independent Television News’s News at Ten bulletin (in the UK) and chiefly noticed when Reginald Bosanquet was newscasting in the 1970s. This kind of ‘tailpiece’ had first been established by ITN in the 1950s. A book called And Finally (edited by Martyn Lewis) collected some of these tailpieces and was published in 1984.

and how! An intensifying phrase of agreement, almost certainly of American origin from, probably, the 1920s. ‘“I should say she was pretty,” said a loud and cheery voice just behind him…“Pneumatic too. And how!”’ – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Chap. 4 (1932).

and I don’t mean maybe! An intensifier to show that the speaker has just issued a command, not simply expressed a wish. Mencken lists it as an ‘American saying circa 1920’. The second line of the song ‘Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’ (circa 1922) is: ‘…No, sir, don’t mean maybe’. OED2 has it by 1926, and it is in James Joyce, Anna Livia Plurabelle (1928).

and I’m like, hello? An expression of mock incredulity, popularized in the mid-1990s by the American TV show Friends. ‘Did you see that vicar the other day who made all the kiddies cry by telling them that Father Christmas couldn’t possibly exist – I mean, I was like, hello, why don’t you tell us about your boss, then, and how he manages?’ – The Independent (17 December 2002).

and in a packed programme tonight…A worn-out TV presentation phrase gently mocked by Ronnie Barker at the start of each edition of the BBC TV comedy show The Two Ronnies (1971–88). Compare his similar mocking of the dual presenters’ IT’S GOODNIGHT FROM ME…

and I quote Rather portentous indication of a quoted remark coming up – as though putting spoken quotation marks around whatever it is the speaker is about to say. The Complete Naff Guide (1983) lists it under ‘Naff Expressions’. Fritz Spiegl commented in MediaSpeak (1989): ‘On TV, “and I quote” may be replaced by the now fashionable, quaint “I quote” gesture: both hands raised aloft, first and second fingers sticking up like rabbit’s ears and brought down once or twice to meet the thumb.’ These finger-waggling ‘air quotes’ were known by 1977.

and I wish I was dead See NOW THERE’S A BEAUT.

and justice for all This phrase comes from the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag (put into its final form by Francis Bellamy in 1892, though further amended in the 1920s and 50s): ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ The idea of ‘justice for all’ is, however, one that goes back to the Greeks. It also gave rise to the remark by Lord Justice Sir James Mathew (d. 1908): ‘In England, justice is open to all, like the Ritz Hotel.’ And Justice for All was the title of a film (1979) about the US legal system. See also ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

and no heavy lifting Phrase used in a jokey description of the demands made – or not made – by a job, usually in politics. In an interview with Hunter Davies in The Independent (18 January 1994), Diane Abbott, the British Labour politician, said: ‘Being an MP is a good job, the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children – clean, indoors and no heavy lifting. What could be nicer?’ Much the same claim had earlier been made by Senator Robert Dole about the US vice-presidency (ABC TV broadcast, 24 July 1988): ‘It is inside work with no heavy lifting.’ And then J. K. Galbraith, Name-Dropping, Chap. 8 (1999), had: ‘[John F.] Kennedy also knew how to identify himself with…the larger electorate. At the end of his 1960 campaign, he addressed a vast crowd in the old Boston Garden… He asked himself, as though from the floor, why he was running for president. In reply, he listed some issues, all relevant to his audience, that needed attention; then he ended by saying that the presidency was a wellpaid job with no heavy lifting. The largely working-class gathering responded with appreciation, affection and joy. He was one of them.’

---, and no mistake! An intensifying phrase of affirmation, dating from the 1810s.

and now a word from our sponsor One of the various ways of getting into a commercial break, taken from American radio and television and much employed in British parodies of same in the 1950s and 60s – though never used in earnest in the UK (for the simple reason that sponsored TV of any type was not permitted until much later).

and now for something completely different…Catchphrase from BBC TV, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–74) and used as the title of the comedy team’s first cinema feature in 1971. Like most graduate comedy shows of the 1960s and 70s, Monty Python rather frowned upon the use of catchphrases as something belonging to another type of show business. Usually delivered by John Cleese as a dinner-jacketed BBC announcer, seated before a microphone on a desk in some unlikely setting, the phrase had hitherto been a slightly arch ‘link’ much loved by magazine programme presenters. These people were thus deprived of a very useful phrase. After all, there is not much else you can say to get from an interview with the Prime Minister to an item about beerdrinking budgerigars. The children’s BBC TV series Blue Peter is sometimes said to have provoked the Python use of the phrase. It was first delivered by Eric Idle in the second edition of Python (12 October 1969), though it had also featured in some of the same team’s earlier series, At Last the 1948 Show, on ITV (1967), where it was uttered by ‘the lovely Aimi Macdonald’ in her introductions.

and now, her nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs! The standard introduction to the singer of that name on the US radio show The Camel Caravan (1943–7).

and pigs might fly (or a pig may fly). An expression of the unlikelihood or impossibility of something actually taking place. Thomas Fuller, the proverb collector, had ‘That is as likely as to see an hog fly’ in 1732 though, earlier, The Spectator (2 April 1711) was bemoaning absurd inn signs including ‘flying Pigs’, which would seem to refer to this saying. From Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chap. 9 (1865): ‘“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice…“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly”.’

and so forth ‘And similarly, and then onwards’ – now mostly used after breaking off a list or quotation. This is a very old phrase indeed. Aelfric was writing ‘And swa forþ’ circa AD 1000 (see YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE). A would-be humorous elaboration of it, dating from the mid-20th century, is and so forth and so fifth!

and so it goes Mildly irritated or amused and philosophical phrase used when presented with yet another example of the way things are in the world. A catchphrase in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). So It Goes was the title of a British TV pop show devoted mainly to punk (by 1976). ‘And so it goes: hassle, hassle, hassle, one horrible death after another, and yet the put-upon lad’s soul is a butterfly that transmutes (on the spiritual sphere, you understand) into an Airfix Spitfire. By MTV standards, Hirst could be the next Francis Ford Coppola’ – The Observer (25 February 1996); ‘Sausages are brilliant all-rounders, everyone knows that. Fried up for breakfast, sandwiched between two slices of bread at lunch, grilled with mustard and mash for supper, cold on sticks at children’s parties, hot on sticks with a spicy dip at grown-up dos, and so it goes’ – The Sunday Times (25 February 1996).

and so to bed Samuel Pepys’s famous signing-off line in his diary entries appears first on 15 January 1660. However, on that particular occasion, they are not quite his last words. He writes: ‘I went to supper, and after that to make an end of this week’s notes in this book, and so to bed.’ Then he adds: ‘It being a cold day and a great snow, my physic did not work so well as it should have done’. And So To Bed was the title of a play (1926) by J. B. Fagan, which was then turned into a musical by Vivian Ellis (1951).

and so we say farewell…The travelogues made by James A. Fitzpatrick (1902–80) were a supporting feature of cinema programmes from 1925 onwards. With the advent of sound, the commentaries to ‘Fitzpatrick Traveltalks’ became noted for their closing words: ‘And it’s from this paradise of the Canadian Rockies that we reluctantly say farewell to Beautiful Banff…/ And as the midnight sun lingers on the skyline of the city, we most reluctantly say farewell to Stockholm, Venice of the North…/ With its picturesque impressions indelibly fixed in our memory, it is time to conclude our visit and reluctantly say farewell to Hong Kong, the hub of the Orient…’ Frank Muir and Denis Norden’s notable parody of the genre – ‘Bal-ham – Gateway to the South’ – first written for radio circa 1948 and later performed on a record album by Peter Sellers (1958) accordingly contained the words, ‘And so we say farewell to this historic borough…’

and still they come…Phrase for the remorseless oncoming of those you (probably) don’t like. From John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem ‘The King’s Missive’ (1881): ‘The pestilent Quakers are in my path! / Some we have scourged, and banished some, / Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come.’ The chorus from ‘The Astronomer’ in Jeff Wayne’s musical album The War of the Worlds (1978) is: ‘The chances of anything coming from Mars / Are a million to one, but still, they come…’ The title of a book by Elliott Barkan is And Still They Come: Immigrants and American Society, 1920 to the 1990s (1998). One is also reminded of Lewis Carroll’s lines about the oysters in ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’: ‘And thick and fast they came at last, / And more, and more, and more.’ Then there is this from Shakespeare, Macbeth, V.v.1 (1606): ‘Hang out our banners on the outward walls; / The cry is still, “They come!”’ ‘One million. And still they came’ – headline over peace march report in The Observer (16 February 2003).

and that ain’t hay! Meaning, ‘And that’s not to be sniffed at/that isn’t negligible’ – often with reference to money. The title of the 1943 Abbott and Costello film that is said to have popularized this (almost exclusively US) exclamation was It Ain’t Hay. But in the same year Mickey Rooney exclaimed ‘And that ain’t hay!’ as he went into the big ‘I Got Rhythm’ number (choreographed by Busby Berkeley) in the film Girl Crazy (the scene being set, appropriately, in an agricultural college).

and that, my dears, is how I came to marry your grandfather As though at the end of a long and rambling reminiscence by an old woman. Also used by the American humorist Robert Benchley (1889–1945) – possibly in capsule criticism of the play Abie’s Irish Rose – and so quoted by Diana Rigg in No Turn Unstoned (1982).

and that’s official Journalistic formula used when conveying, say, the findings of some newly published report. The aim, presumably, is to dignify the fact(s) so presented but also to do it in a not too daunting manner. A cliché condemned by Keith Waterhouse in Daily Mirror Style (1981). ‘Yes, the Prime Minister’s condition is “satisfactory” – and that’s official!’ – Private Eye (1962); ‘In America, there are no bad people, only people who think badly of themselves. And that’s official. California has a state commission to promote self-esteem, there is a National Council for Self-Esteem with its own bulletin…’ – Independent on Sunday (8 May 1994).

and that’s the way it is The authoritative but avuncular TV anchorman Walter Cronkite (b. 1916) retired from anchoring the CBS TV Evening News after nineteen years – for most of which he had concluded with these words. On the final occasion, he said: ‘And that’s the way it is, Friday March 6, 1981. Goodnight.’

and the band played on…Things went on as usual, no notice was taken. A phrase from a song, ‘The Band Played On’, written by John F. Palmer in 1895. A non-fiction book by Randy Shilts about the first years of AIDS was called And the Band Played On and filmed (US 1993). This title presumably alludes to the earlier play by Mart Crowley, The Boys in the Band, also about male homosexuals (filmed US 1970).

and the best of luck! Ironic encouragement. Frankie Howerd, the British comedian (?1917–92), claimed in his autobiography, On the Way I Lost It (1976), to have given this phrase to the language: ‘It came about when I introduced into radio Variety Bandbox [late 1940s] those appallingly badly sung mock operas starring…Madame Vera Roper (soprano)…Vera would pause for breath before a high C and as she mustered herself for this musical Everest I would mutter, “And the best of luck!” Later it became, “And the best of British luck!” The phrase is so common now that I frequently surprise people when I tell them it was my catchphrase on Variety Bandbox.’ Partridge/Catch Phrases suggests, however, that the ‘British luck’ version had already been a Second World War army phrase meaning the exact opposite of what it appeared to say and compares it with a line from a First World War song: ‘Over the top with the best of luck / Parley-voo’.

and the next object is ---In the radio panel game Twenty Questions, broadcast by the BBC from 1947 to 1976, a mystery voice – most memorably Norman Hackforth’s – would inform listeners in advance about the object the panellists would then try to identify by asking no more than twenty questions. Hackforth would intone in his deep, fruity voice: ‘And the next object is “The odour in the larder” [or some such poser].’

and the next Tonight will be tomorrow night…The stock concluding phrase of the original BBC TV early evening magazine Tonight (1957–65). Cliff Michelmore, who used to say ‘And the next Tonight will be tomorrow night…good night!’, commented (1979): ‘The combined brains of Alasdair Milne, Donald Baverstock, myself and three others were employed to come up with the phrase. There were at least ten others tried and permed. At least we cared…!’

and thereby hangs a tale As a storytelling device, this is still very much in use to indicate that some tasty titbit is about to be revealed. It occurs a number of times in Shakespeare. In As You Like It, II.vii.28 (1598) Jaques, reporting the words of a motley fool (Touchstone), says: ‘And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, / And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot: / And thereby hangs a tale.’ Other examples occur in The Merry Wives of Windsor (I.iv.143) and The Taming of the Shrew (IV.i.50). In Othello (III.i.8), the Clown says, ‘O, thereby hangs a tail,’ emphasizing the innuendo that may or may not be present in the other examples.

and there’s more where that came from Catchphrase from the BBC radio Goon Show (1951–60). This was sometimes said by Major Denis Bloodnok (Peter Sellers) and occasionally by Wallace Greenslade (a BBC staff announcer who, like his senior colleague, John Snagge, was allowed to let his hair down on the show). An example occurs in ‘The Call of the West’ (20 January 1959). The origins of the phrase probably lie in some music-hall comedian’s patter, uttered after a particular joke had gone well. Charles Dickens in Chapter 11 of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–4) shows that the phrase was established in other contexts first: ‘Mr Jonas filled the young ladies’ glasses, calling on them not to spare it, as they might be certain there was plenty more where that came from.’ Jimmy Cricket, a British comedian, was exclaiming simply, ‘And there’s more!’ by 1986.

and they all lived happily ever after The traditional ending to ‘fairy’ tales is not quite so frequently used as ONCE UPON A TIME, but it is present (more or less) in five of The Classic Fairy Tales gathered in their earliest known English forms by Iona and Peter Opie (1974). ‘Jack and the Giants’ (circa 1760) ends: ‘He and his Lady lived the Residue of their Days in great Joy and Happiness.’ ‘Jack and the Bean-Stalk’ (1807) ends: ‘His mother and he lived together a great many years, and continued always to be very happy.’ A translation of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ by the brothers Grimm (1823) ends: ‘Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily over that land many many years.’ A translation of ‘The Frog-Prince’ ends: ‘They arrived safely, and lived happily a great many years. A Scottish version of ‘Cinderella’ (collected 1878) has: ‘They lived happily all their days.’ The concluding words of Winston Churchill’s My Early Life (1930) are: ‘…September 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards.’

and this is what you do See MORNING ALL.

and this is where the story really starts…Catchphrase from BBC radio’s The Goon Show (1951–60), usually uttered by the announcer/narrator, Wallace Greenslade, and especially in ‘Dishonoured – Again’ (26 January 1959).