A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
the 1930s/40s.
bread and butter issues Fundamental matters of direct concern to ordinary people – as important to them as the basic food they eat. Of quite recent origin and a cliché by about 1990. ‘The second problem is more fundamental: what does the party stand for? The dilemma was highlighted in a thoughtful speech to a fringe meeting by Mr Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro, who pointed out that “we have a higher profile on Bosnia than on any bread-and-butter domestic policy issue that determines how people vote”’ – Financial Times (14 March 1994); ‘This is precisely why Tony Blair has devoted much time and thought to softening up the ground to be more fertile to accept the reasons for widespread change in the way the country is governed. It is very much a bread and butter issue’ – letter to the editor, The Guardian (3 January 1995).
bread and circuses What the citizen is chiefly concerned about, having been bribed by whoever is in office with public entertainments and free food, as a way of avoiding popular discontent. Coined as panem et circenses by the Roman satirist, Juvenal (circa AD 60-circa 130) in his Satires, No. 10. Circuses here means chariot races and games in a stadium. The Circus was an oval-shaped racecourse.
bread and pullet (or pullit) Grown-up’s fobbing-off phrase, when asked, usually by a small person, ‘What’s for tea?’ – according to the writer Christopher Matthew on BBC Radio Quote…Unquote (16 May 1995) and confirmed by many others. ‘My mother used to say “Bread and Pullett’, supposedly a reference to a poor family who had to take the bread and pull it to make it go round’ – Sylvia Dowling (1998). ‘I recently came across a Victorian recipe for “Pulled Bread”. The white crumb was peeled from the middle of a freshly baked, still warm loaf. This was then put in the oven until golden brown’ – John Smart (2000). The basic phrase would seem to refer to bread without any addition of butter or jam, just plain fare.
breadbox See IS IT BIGGER.
break a leg! A traditional theatrical greeting given before a performance, especially a first night, because it is considered bad luck to wish anyone ‘good luck’ directly. Another version is snap a wrist! Partridge/Slang has ‘to break a leg’ as ‘to give birth to a bastard’, dating from the 17th century, but that is probably unconnected. As also is the fact that John Wilkes Booth, an actor, broke his leg after assassinating President Lincoln in a theatre. Morris (1977) has it based on a German good luck expression, Hals und Beinbruch [May you break your neck and your leg]. Perhaps this entered theatrical speech (like several other expressions) via Yiddish. Compare SEE YOU ON THE ICE! Other theatrical good-luck expressions include merde! [French: shit!], TOY! TOY! and in bocca del lupo [Italian: into the wolf’s jaws], although this last has also been heard in the form ‘bocc’ al lupo‘.
breakfast See CONDEMNED MAN; DOG’S.
break for the border This alliterative phrase has been used as (1) the title of a radio programme presented by the disc jockey Andy Kershaw on the British Forces Broadcasting Service (1987–90); (2) the title of various recorded musical numbers, from 1990 onwards; (3) the name of a group of restaurant/bars in the UK and Ireland in the 1990s. Its origin has not been found (and Andy Kershaw is unable to remember why his programme was called that…)
breakfast of champions An advertising line used to promote Wheaties breakfast cereal in the USA, since 1950 at least. In the 1980s, a series of ads featuring sporting champions showed, for example, ‘Jackie Robinson – one of the greatest names in baseball…this Dodgers star is a Wheaties man: “A lot of us ball players go for milk, fruit and Wheaties,” says Jackie…Had your Wheaties today?’ Kurt Vonnegut used the phrase as the title of a novel (1973). In 1960s’ Australia it was also used as a slang expression for sexual intercourse on awakening – specifically cunnilingus.
(the) breaking of nations The title of Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”’ (conceived at the time of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and written during the First World War) alludes to Jeremiah 51:20: ‘Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.’
(to) break the mould ‘To start afresh from fundamentals’. When the Social Democratic Party was established in 1981, there was much talk of it ‘breaking the mould of British politics’ – i.e. doing away with the traditional system of one government and one chief opposition party. But this was by no means a new way of describing political change and getting rid of an old system for good in a way that prevents it being reconstituted. In What Matters Now (1972), Roy Jenkins, one of the new party’s founders, had quoted Andrew Marvell’s ‘Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ (1650): ‘And cast the kingdoms old, / Into another mould.’ In a speech at a House of Commons Press Gallery lunch on 8 June 1960, Jenkins had also said: ‘The politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?’ A. J. P. Taylor, in his English History 1914–1945 (1965), had earlier written: ‘Lloyd George needed a new crisis to break the mould of political and economic habit’. The image evoked, as in the days of the Luddites, is of breaking the mould from which iron machinery is cast – so completely that the machinery has to be re-cast from scratch.
breath See DON’T HOLD YOUR.
breathing space A phrase generally used to denote a pause in time for consideration when some outside pressure has been taken off. Date of origin uncertain. ‘Their crowd expects results, speed and guts, and particularly results. Playing in Europe, where even the most demanding crowd realizes guile is all, has given Arsenal the breathing space to develop different ideas’ – The Sunday Times (1 May 1994); ‘Alexon Group, the women’s wear retailer, has secured financial breathing-space by striking an agreement with its bankers for a new two-year facility. The shares responded by rising 4p to 26p’ – Financial Times (31 March 1995).
brewed, saucered and blowed A drink of tea that is now ready for drinking – because it has been brewed, poured into a saucer and blown on to cool it a little. A British expression, probably in use by the mid-20th century.
brick See CAN’T THROW A BRICK.
(the) bridegroom on the wedding cake A memorable insult, this phrase is usually attributed to Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980). She said that Thomas Dewey, who was challenging Harry S Truman for the US presidency in 1948, looked like the ‘bridegroom’ or just ‘the man’ ‘on the wedding cake’. Dewey did indeed have a wooden, dark appearance and a black moustache.
(a) bridge over troubled water ‘Like a bridge over troubled water, / I will ease your mind’ comes from the song ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (1970), by the American singer/songwriter Paul Simon. It sounds positively biblical – but although waters are troubled in Psalm 46:3 and John 5:7, the word ‘bridge’ occurs nowhere in the Bible. In fact, the phrase may have been influenced by ‘I’ll be a bridge over deep water if you trust my name’, spoken by the Reverend Claude Jeter, lead singer of the Swan Silvertones gospel group, in ‘O Mary Don’t You Weep’.
(a) bridge too far A phrase sometimes used allusively when warning of an unwise move or regretting one that has already been made. The clichéd use derives from the title of Cornelius Ryan’s book A Bridge Too Far (1974; film UK/US 1977) about the 1944 airborne landings in Holland. These were designed to capture eleven bridges needed for the Allied invasion of Germany – an attempt that came to grief at Arnhem, the Allies suffering more casualties there than in the Normandy landings. In advance of the action, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning was reported to have protested to Field-Marshal Montgomery, who was in overall command: ‘But, sir, we may be going a bridge too far.’ More recent research has established that Browning did not see Montgomery before the operation and most likely