Nigel Rees - A Word In Your Shell-Like стр 30.

arf a mo, Kaiser! A 191516 recruiting poster during the First World War showed a British Tommy lighting a pipe prior to going into action, with this caption underneath. The phrase caught on from there. A photograph of a handwritten sign from the start of the Second World War shows it declaring, Arf a mo, itler! In 1939, there was also a short documentary produced by British Paramount News with the title Arf a Mo Hitler.

Argentina See DONT CRY.

arm See CHANCE ONES.

(to cost an) arm and a leg A measurement of (high) cost, as in Thatll cost you an arm and a leg. Probably of American origin, mid-20th century. Compare this with B. H. Malkins 1809 translation of Le Sages Gil Blas: He was short in his reckoning by an arm and a leg.

armed to the teeth Heavily armed, alluding to the fact that pirates are sometimes portrayed as carrying a knife or sabre held between the teeth. Is there any reason why we should be armed to the teeth? Richard Cobden, Speeches (1849); Mujahedinplayed a major role in bringing down the Shah and armed to the teeth The Daily Telegraph (21 August 1979); Once upon a time it would have been pirates fighting over buried treasure. Nowadays its redneck firemen (Bill Paxton and William Sadler) under siege from a posse of drug dealers (headed by rappers Ice T and Ice Cube) who are armed to the teeth with guns and mobile phones The Sunday Telegraph (9 May 1993).

armpit See MAKES YOUR.

arms and the man The title of George Bernard Shaws play Arms and the Man (1894) comes from the first line of Virgils Aeneid: Arma virumque cano [Of arms and the man, I sing] or rather from Drydens translation of the same: Arms, and the man I sing. Earlier than Shaw, Thomas Carlyle, suggesting in Past and Present (1843) that a true modern epic was technological rather than military, had written: For we are to bethink us that the Epic verily is not Arms and the Man, but Tools and the Man.

(the) army game The Army Game was an immensely popular British TV comedy series (195762). Its title homed in on a phrase that seemed to sum up the attitude of those condemned to spend their lives in the ranks. Apparently of American origin, possibly by 1900, its the old army game refers to the military system as it works to the disadvantage of those in the lower ranks. From Theodore Fredenburghs Soldiers March (1930): I get the idea. Its the old army game: first, pass the buck, second The phrase also occurs in the film You Cant Take It With You (US 1938). Compare war game (known by 1900), a theoretical way of fighting battles (and a type of chess). The War Game (1965) was the title of a TV film by Peter Watkins that was for a long time not shown because of its vivid depiction of the effect of nuclear war on the civilian population.

(the) arrogance of power The Arrogance of Power (1967) was the title of a book by the American Democratic politician J. William Fulbright. It questioned the basis of US foreign policy, particularly in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. In the previous year, Fulbright, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had given lectures establishing his theme: A psychological need that nations seem to haveto prove that they are bigger, better or stronger than other nations.

arse

See ALL BALLS; DOESNT KNOW HIS.

arsehole See FROM ARSEHOLE.

arsenic and old lace Title of a play (1941) by Joseph Kesselring (filmed US 1941) about two old ladies who poison elderly gentlemen. It plays upon the earlier lavender and old lace, itself used as the title of sentimental novel (1902) by Myrtle Reed. That phrase came to be used as a way of indicating old-fashioned gentility.

ars gratia artis Motto of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film company. Howard Dietz, director of publicity and advertising with the original Goldwyn Pictures company, had left Columbia University not long before creating it circa 1916. When asked to design a trademark, he based it on the universitys lion and added the Latin words meaning art for arts sake underneath. The trademark and motto were carried over when Samuel Goldwyn retired to make way for the merger of Metropolitan with the interests of Louis B. Mayer in what has become known since as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Goldwyn may never have subscribed to the sentiment it expressed. Most of his working life was spent as an independent producer, famously more interested in money than art.

art See AS THE ART.

Arthur See BIG-HEARTED.

Arthurs bosom A malapropism for ABRAHAMS BOSOM from Shakespeares Henry V, II.iii.9 (1599). The Hostess (formerly Mistress Quickly) says of the dead Falstaff: Nay, sure, hes not in hell: hes in Arthurs bosom, if ever man went to Arthurs bosom.

artificial See AMUSING.

(the) art of the possible What politics is said to be. A phrase used as the title of memoirs (1971) by R. A. (Lord) Butler, the British Conservative politician. In the preface to the paperback edition of The Art of the Possible, Butler noted that this definition of politics appears first to have been used in modern times by Bismarck in 18667 (in conversation with Meyer von Waldeck: Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst [politics are not a science, as many professors declare, but an art]). If he said precisely the phrase as used by Butler, it would have been: Die Politik ist die Lehr vom Möglichen. Others who have touched on the idea included Cavour, Salvador de Madriaga, Pindar and Camus. To these might be added J.K. Galbraiths rebuttal: Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable letter to President Kennedy (March 1962), quoted in Ambassadors Journal (1969).