A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees

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      doors See BEHIND CLOSED.

      (the) doors of perception Phrase from William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (circa 1790): ‘If the doors of perception [i.e. the senses] were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ This view was seized upon by proponents of drug culture in the 1960s. The Doors of Perception had been the title given to Aldous Huxley’s book (1954) about his experiments with mescalin and LSD. From the phrase was also derived the name of the US vocal/instrumental group The Doors.

      Dorothy See IS SHE A.

      do that thing (or small thing)! ‘How nice of you to offer to do that!’ Or, ‘Please go ahead!’ Or ‘Thanks, yes!’ Current in the UK 1950s/60s.

      do the right thing Do the Right Thing was the title of a film (US 1989) about Afro-American people in a Brooklyn slum. From Harper’s Index (January 1990): ‘Number of times the phrase “do the right thing” has been used in Congress since Spike Lee’s film was released last June: 67 / Number of times the phrase was used in reference to congressional pay rise: 16 / Number of times it was used in reference to racial issues: 1.’ The British English equivalent would be do the decent thing (known by 1914), although ‘do the right thing’ seems almost as well established (known by the 1880s). Is there a connection with First World War epitaphs, ‘He trusted in God and tried to do the right’ or with the older motto ‘Trust in God, and do the Right’?

      do they know it’s Christmas? Referring to those suffering from famine. This was the question posed in the title of a song written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in 1984. Performed by Band Aid – an ad hoc group of pop singers and musicians – it became the UK Christmas No. 1 record in 1984 and again in 1989. In 1984, by drawing attention to those suffering in the Ethiopian civil war and famine, it gave rise to the Band Aid concert in July 1985.

      (a) Double Diamond works wonders Slogan for Double Diamond beer in the UK, from 1952. The double alliteration may have a lot to do with it, but it was surely the singing of the slogan to the tune of ‘There’s a Hole in my Bucket’ that made it one of the best-known of all beer slogans.

      (a) double whammy A two-part or twopronged blow, difficulty or disadvantage. Until the General Election of 1992, few people in Britain were familiar with the phrase. Then the Conservative Party introduced a poster showing a boxer wearing two enormous boxing gloves, labelled ‘1. More tax’ and ‘2. Higher prices’. The overall slogan was ‘LABOUR’S DOUBLE WHAMMY’. This caused a good deal of puzzlement in Britain, though the concept of a ‘double whammy’ had been known in the USA since the 1950s. DOAS traces the word to Al Capp’s ‘L’il Abner’ comic strip where a ‘whammy’ was the evil-eyed stare of the character Eagle Eye Feegle. He was able to render people motionless and speechless merely by looking at them. A stare with one eye was called a ‘whammy’, but in emergencies he could use both eyes, hence ‘double whammy’.

      double your pleasure, double your fun