A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ