Nigel Rees - A Word In Your Shell-Like стр 32.

as Dorothy Parker once saidThe title of a stage show (circa 1975), devoted to the wit of Dorothy Parker and performed by Libby Morris. This is testimony to the fact that Parker is undoubtedly the most quoted woman of the 20th century. It is probably an allusion to the verse of Cole Porters song Just One of Those Things (1935), that begins: As Dorothy Parker once said to her boy friend, Fare thee well

as easy as falling off a log Very simple. This citation from the New Orleans Picayune (29 March 1839) suggests a North American origin and the quotation marks, that it was reasonably well

established by that date: He gradually went away from the Lubber, and won the heat, just as easy as falling off a log.

as every schoolboy knows It is a well-known fact a consciously archaic use. Robert Burton wrote Every schoolboy hathin The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) and Bishop Jeremy Taylor used the expression every schoolboy knows it in 1654. In the next century, Jonathan Swift had, I might have told how oft Dean Perceval / Displayed his pedantry unmerciful, / How haughtily he cocks his nose, / To tell what every schoolboy knows, in his poem The Country Life (1722). But the most noted user of this rather patronizing phrase was Lord Macaulay, the historian, who would say things like, Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa (essay on Lord Clive, January 1840). But do they still?

as if I caredCatchphrase from the 1940s BBC radio series ITMA. Sam Fairfechan (Hugh Morton) would say, Good morning, how are you today? and immediately add, As if I cared The character took his name from Llanfairfechan, a seaside resort in North Wales, where Ted Kavanagh, ITMAs scriptwriter, lived when the BBC Variety Department was evacuated to nearby Bangor during the early part of the Second World War.

as it happens A verbal tic of the British disc jockey Jimmy Savile (later Sir James Savile OBE) (b. 1926). He used it as the title of his autobiography in 1974. However, when the book came out in paperback the title had been changed to Love Is an Uphill Thing because (or so it was explained) the word love in the title would ensure extra sales. After dance-hall exposure, Savile began his broadcasting career with Radio Luxembourg in the 1950s. His other stock phrase hows about that then, guys and gals? started then. For example, on Radio Luxembourg, The Teen and Twenty Disc Club, he certainly said, Hi, there, guys and gals, welcome to the

as I was saying before I was so rudely interruptedA humorous phrase used when resuming an activity after an enforced break. In September 1946, Cassandra (William OConnor) resumed his column in the Daily Mirror after it had been suspended for the duration of the Second World War, with: As I was saying when I was interrupted, it is a powerful hard thing to please all the people all the time. In June of that same year, announcer Leslie Mitchell is reported to have begun BBC TVs resumed transmissions with: As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. The phrase sounds as if it might have originated in music-hall routines of the I DONT WISH TO KNOW THAT, KINDLY LEAVE THE STAGE type. Compare A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926): AS I WAS SAYING, said Eeyore loudly and sternly, as I was saying when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that . Fary Luis de León, the Spanish poet and religious writer, is believed to have resumed a lecture at Salamanca University in 1577 with, Dicebamus hesterno die[We were saying yesterday]. He had been in prison for five years.

as I walked out one midsummer morning The title of Laurie Lees memoir As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) uses a format phrase that occurs in a number of English folk songs. Indeed, in his earlier Cider With Rosie, Lee refers to an old song with the line, As I walked out one May morning. Another folk song begins, As I rode out one midsummers morning. Compare the line from the Robert Burns poem, As I went out ae [= one] May morning (which is based on an old Scottish song).

ask See DONT.

ask a silly question (get a silly answer) A response to an answer that is less than helpful or amounts to a put-down. The second part is often not spoken, just inferred. Probably since the late 19th century.

ask the man who owns one This slogan for Packard motors, in the USA from circa 1902, originated with James Ward Packard, the founder of the company, and appeared for many years in all Packard advertising and sales material. Someone had written asking for more information about his motors. Packard told his secretary: Tell him that we have no literature we arent that big yet but if he wants to know how good an automobile the Packard is, tell him to ask the man who owns one. A 1903 Packard placard is the first printed evidence of the slogan in use. It lasted for more than 35 years.

as lazy as Ludlums dog who lay down to bark

Very lazy. Partridge/Slang has lazy as Ludlums/(David) Laurences/Lumleys dogmeaning extremely lazyAccording to the [old] proverb, this admirable creature leant against a wall to bark and compares the 19th-century lazy as Joe the marine who laid down his musket to fart and lazy as the tinker who laid his budget to fart. Apperson finds lazy as Ludlams dog, that leant his head against a wall to bark in Rays proverb collection (1670).