A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Reverend John Skinner, diary entry for 28 April 1822 (Journal of a Somerset Rector 1803–1834, pub. 1930/1971).

      beyond See ABOVE AND.

      beyond the Fringe Beyond the Fringe was the title of a trend-setting, somewhat satirical, revue (London 1961 and then on Broadway). It had first been shown, however, at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival as part of the main programme of events, where it was ‘beyond’ the unofficial series of theatrical manifestations at Edinburgh known as the ‘Fringe’. Note also an allusion to the following:

      beyond the pale Meaning, ‘outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour’. The Pale was the area of English settlement around Dublin in Ireland, dating from the 14th century, in which English law had to be obeyed, but there have also been areas known as pales in Scotland, around Calais and in Russia. The derivation is from the Latin palus, meaning ‘a stake’. Anyone who lived outside this fence was thought to be beyond the bounds of civilization. The allusive use does not appear earlier than the mid-19th century.

      BFN – ‘bye for now See MORNING ALL.

      bicycle See AS SURE.

      (the) Big Apple As a nickname for New York City, this expression seems to have arisen in the 1920s/30s. There are various possible explanations: the Spanish word for a block of houses between two streets is manzana which is also the word for apple; in the mid-1930s there was a Harlem night club called ‘The Big Apple’, which was a mecca for jazz musicians; there was also a jitterbugging dance from the swing era (circa 1936) that took its name from the nightclub; ‘big apple’ was racetrack argot, and New York City had a good reputation in this field – hence, the phrase was used to describe the city’s metropolitan racing (as in a column ‘On the Big Apple’ by John J. Fitzgerald in the Morning Telegraph, mid-1920s.) OED2 has ‘Big Apple’ for New York City in 1928 before the dance explanation, but Safire plumps for the jazz version, recalling a 1944 jive ‘handbook’ defining ‘apple’ as: ‘the earth, the universe, this planet. Any place that’s large. A big Northern city’. Hence, you called New York City the Big Apple if you considered it to be the centre of the universe. In 1971, Charles Gillett, president of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, attempted to revitalize NYC’s economy by re-popularizing it as ‘the Big Apple’ (compare I LOVE NEW YORK). In the 18th century, Horace Walpole had called London ‘The Strawberry’ because of its freshness and cleanliness in comparison with foreign cities.

      (a) big boy did it and ran away The classic child’s excuse when insisting that something which has happened is not its fault. Hence, A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, the title of a novel (2001) by Christopher Brookmyre.

      Big Brother is watching you A fictional slogan from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948). In a dictatorial state, every citizen is regimented and observed by a spying TV set in the home. The line became a popular catchphrase following a sensational BBC TV dramatization of the novel in 1954. Aspects of the Ministry of Truth in the novel were derived not only from Orwell’s knowledge of the BBC (where he worked) but also from his first wife Eileen’s work at the Ministry of Food, preparing ‘Kitchen Front’ broadcasts during the Second World War (circa 1942–4). From 2000, Channel 4 in the UK showed an annual series of Big Brother, a so-called ‘reality’ TV programme in which the behaviour of a group of people contained in a house was continuously recorded and shown in edited excerpts.

      (a) big butter and egg man This description of a small-town businessman trying to prove himself a big shot in the city was much used by Texas Guinan, the US nightclub hostess (d. 1933). Cyril Connolly in his Journals (1983) characterized the man in question as a small-town success, often a farmer who produced such commodities as butter and eggs, and who attempted to pass for a sophisticate in the big city. Finding it first in the 1920s, OED2 emphasizes that the man in question – ‘wealthy, unsophisticated’ – spends his money freely. The Butter and Egg Man was the title of a play (1925) by George S. Kaufman.

      big conk, big cock (or big nose, big cock)! A phrase expressing the age-old superstition that there is a correlation between the size of a man’s nose and his penis. Erasmus (1466–1536), of all people, is supposed to have included the aphorism (in Latin) in one of his works, as ‘Bene nasati, bene menticulati’. Compare large feet, large cock and its corollary, small feet, small cock – recorded in my book The Gift of the Gab (1985). Hence, the playful exchange in the film Notting Hill (UK 1999): Anna: ‘You have big feet.’ William: ‘Yes, always have had.’ Anna: ‘You know what they say about men with big feet?’ William: ‘No, what’s that?’ Anna: ‘Big feet, large shoes.’

      big deal! A deflating (mostly American) exclamation. DOAS has it in ‘wide student use since circa 1940’ and ‘popularized by comedian Arnold Stang in the Henry Morgan network radio program circa 1946 and on the Milton Berle network program circa 1950’. Leo Rosten in Hooray for Yiddish! (1982) emphasizes its similarity with sarcastic, derisive Jewish phrases and notes how ‘it is uttered with emphasis on the “big”, in a dry disenchanted tone’.

      (the) Big Enchilada Nickname of John Mitchell (1913–88), US Attorney General, who led President Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972 and subsequently was sentenced to a gaol term for associated offences. An enchilada is a Mexican dish. The term was evoked (like ‘Big Cheese’) by a Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, during a 1973 taped conversation in the White House. He sought to describe the size of the sacrificial victim who was being thrown to the wolves.

      (the) Big Fellow (or Big Fella) Nickname of Michael Collins (1890–1922), the Irish politician and Sinn Fein leader. Tim Pat Coogan in his biography (1990) notes that the sobriquet indicated: ‘Swollen-headedness as much as height, just under six feet.’ Sometimes also known as the Long Fellow.

      (too) big for one’s boots Meaning, ‘conceited’. In use by 1879. Perhaps originally ‘…for one’s breeches’ (US by 1835). An example: in 1948, reports of a speech by Harold Wilson, then President of the Board of Trade, wrongly suggested he had claimed that when at school, some of his classmates had gone barefoot. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas consequently remarked at the 1949 Conservative Party Conference: ‘If ever he went to school without any boots it was because he was too big for them.’ This remark is often wrongly attributed to Harold Macmillan.

      bigger See IS IT.

      (a) bigger splash Title of David Hockney’s 1967 painting – one of his California swimming pool series – that shows a splash as a diver enters the water but does not show his body. Accordingly, A Bigger Splash became the title of a 1973 British documentary for the cinema about Hockney’s life as an artist and as a homosexual.

      (the) bigger they come, the harder they fall A proverbial phrase often attributed to Bob Fitzsimmons (1862–1917), a Britishborn boxer in the USA, referring to an opponent of larger build (James L. Jeffries), prior to a fight in San Francisco (9 June 1899). This was quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (11 August 1900) as, ‘The bigger they are, the further they have to fall.’ Also attributed to the boxer John L. Sullivan but probably of earlier proverbial origin in any case. Hence, presumably, The Harder They Fall, title of a novel by Budd Schulberg and a film (US 1956) about boxing. The Harder They Come was also the title of a film (US 1973).

      (a) big girl’s blouse Phrase used about a man who is not as manly as he might be. A rather odd expression, possibly of Welsh origin, and suggesting СКАЧАТЬ