Nigel Rees - A Word In Your Shell-Like стр 26.

as the title of a farce guying Margaret Thatchers husband.

anyone we know? Originally, a straightforward request for information when told, say, that someone you know is getting married and you want to know to whom. Then it became a playful catchphrase: Shes going to have a baby Whos the father anyone we know? The joke use certainly existed in the 1930s. In the film The Gay Divorcee (US 1934), Ginger Rogers states: A man tore my dress off. A woman friend asks: Anyone we know? The moment from which many of us date the genre was when the curtain rose on a production by Harry Kupfer in the late 1970s I think of a work by Richard Strauss to reveal a set dominated by a huge phallus, occasioning, from one male in the stalls to his gentleman friend, the loud whisper: Anyone we know, duckie? The Times (17 May 1986).

any one whocant be all bad Format phrase suggesting that something about which doubt has been expressed is really rather good. Perhaps the original is what Leo Rosten said about W. C. Fields (and not, as is sometimes reported, what Fields himself said of another): Any man who hates children and dogs cant be all bad (or Anybody who hates dogs and babies cant be all bad). This was at a Masquers Club dinner (16 February 1939). Subsequently: Anyone with a name like Hitler cant be all that bad Spike Milligan, The Last Goon Show of All (1972); All the same, Garland and Rooney as Babes In Armsplus long-lost tracks from Band Wagon and Good News and Brigadoon and Its Always Fair Weather, cant be all bad Sheridan Morley in Theatreprint, Vol. 5, No. 95 (May 1995).

any port in a storm Meaning, metaphorically, any roof over your head is better than none or you cant be choosy about shelter in adversity. The phrase makes an early appearance in John Clelands Fanny Hill (1749): I feeling pretty sensibly that it [her lovers member] was going by the right door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him of it: Pooh, says he, my dear, any port in a storm.

anything can happen and probably will The standard opening announcement of the BBC radio show Take It From Here (194859) was that it was a comedy programme in which anything can happen and probably will. The show was based on literate scripts by Frank Muir (192098) and Denis Norden (b. 1922) and featured Jimmy Edwards (192088), Dick Bentley (190795) and June Whitfield (b. 1926) (who succeeded Joy Nichols).

anything for a laugh Casual reason given for doing something a little out of the ordinary, since the 1930s. P. G. Wodehouse, Laughing Gas (1936): Anything for a laugh is your motto. In the 1980s it was combined with the similar phrases good for a laugh (itself used as the title of a book by Bennett Cerf in 1952) and game for anything to produce the title of the British TV show Game For a Laugh (19815). This consisted of various stunts and had elements of Candid Camera as it persuaded members of the public to take part in stunts both in and out of the studio. The title was much repeated by the presenters of the show, as in Lets see if so-and-so is game for a laugh

anything for a quiet life The Jacobean playwright Thomas Heywood used this proverbial phrase in his play Captives, Act 3, Sc. 3 (1624), but Thomas Middleton had actually entitled a play Anything For a Quiet Life (possibly written with John Webster) in about 1620. Swift included the phrase in Polite Conversation (1738) and Dickens incorporated it as a Wellerism in The Pickwick Papers, Chap. 43 (1837): But anythin for a quiet life, as the man said wen he took the sitivation at the lighthouse.

anything goes! Meaning, there are no rules and restrictions here, you can do whatever you like. Popularized by the song and musical show with the title written by Cole Porter (1934). Compare the much older this is/its Liberty Hall, which was probably coined by Oliver Goldsmith in She Stoops To Conquer, Act 2 (1773): This is Liberty-hall, gentlemen. You may do just as you please. W. W. Reade wrote a book with the title Liberty Hall (1860).

anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you The police caution to a person who may be charged with a crime has had various forms in the UK. The version you might expect

from reading fiction would go something like: You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but, I must warn you, whatever you do say will be taken down and may be given in evidence against you. But this does not conform with modern practice. British police are advised that care should be taken to avoid any suggestion that evidence might only be used against a person, as this could prevent an innocent person making a statement that might help clear him of a charge. Old habits die hard, however. The phrase is etched on the national consciousness, and it must have been said at one time. Charles Dickens in Our Mutual Friend (18645) has Mr Inspector (an early example of a police officer in fiction) give the caution (which he refers to as such) in these words: Its my duty to inform you that whatever you say, will be used against you (Bk 4, Chap. 12). Earlier, Dickens had Mr Bucket saying in Bleak House, Chap. 49 (18523): Its my duty to inform you that any observation you may make will be liable to be used against you. Examples of the against you caution also appear in Sherlock Holmes short stories by Conan Doyle (1905 and 1917). In the US, the phrase may still be found. In Will (1980), G. Gordon Liddy describes what he said during a raid on Dr Timothy Learys house in connection with drugs charges (in March 1966): I want you to understand that you dont have to make any statement, and any statement you do make may be used against you in a court of law. A decision of the US Supreme Court (Miranda v. Arizona, 1966) known as the Miranda Decision requires law enforcement officials to tell anyone taken into custody that, inter alia, anything the person says can be used against them.