A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
bid too far?’ – The Observer (8 July 1990); ‘The Government is poised to announce legislation to ban [pub lotteries], but is its decision justified? Fran Abrams asks why ministers believe that this is a punt too far’ – The Independent (13 November 1997); ‘In The Path to Power [Lady Thatcher] describes Maastricht as “a treaty too far” and calls for the rolling back of European Union law’ – The Independent (22 May 1995).
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Alert, especially like a squirrel. The expression appears to have been used in connection with US astronauts (circa 1967). Partridge/Slang suggests a Canadian 1930s’ origin. But the great popularizer must have been B. Merrill’s song with the title in 1953: ‘If the fox in the bush and the squirr’l in the tree be / Why in the world can’t you and me be / Bright eyed and bushy tailed and sparkelly as we can be?’
bright See ALL THINGS; ALWAYS MERRY.
bright young things Young socialites of the 1920s and early 30s whose reaction to the rigours of the First World War was to give parties and dance away the night, copied in more modest style by their poorer contemporaries. During a short period of frivolity, such people disregarded the poverty and unemployment around them and flouted convention. The females were also known as ‘flappers’. The phrase in this form was known by 1927, but Punch (4 August 1926) has: ‘The energies of that exuberant coterie known as the “Bright Young People” whose romps, practical jokes…have contributed to the liveliness of London during the last few months.’ Indeed, ‘Bright Young People’ would appear to be the original form of the phrase, and Evelyn Waugh, in his novel Vile Bodies (1930), continues to call them this, with capital first letters. However, when Waugh’s novel was filmed (UK 2003), it was given the title Bright Young Things.
bring back the cat Long the cry of corporal punishment enthusiasts in Britain demanding the return of beating as an official punishment. Usually associated with right-wing ‘hangers and floggers’ within the Conservative Party who seldom miss their chance to utter the cry (though not in so many words) at their annual conference. The cat-o’-nine-tails was the nine-thong whip once used to enforce discipline in the Royal Navy. A female jury member utters the cry in BBC TV, Hancock, ‘Twelve Angry Men’ (16 October 1959). In a now published letter (19 June 1970), Philip Larkin wrote: ‘Remember my song, How To Win The Next Election? “Prison for Strikers, Bring back the cat, Kick out the niggers, How about that?”’
(to) bring home the bacon Meaning ‘to be successful in a venture’, this may have to do with the Dunmow Flitch, a tradition established in AD 1111 at Great Dunmow in Essex. Married couples who can prove they have lived for a year and a day without quarrelling or without wishing to be unmarried can claim a gammon of bacon. Also, country fairs used to have competitions that involved catching a greased pig. If you ‘brought home the bacon’, you won. In 1910, when Jack Johnson, the American negro boxer, won the World Heavyweight boxing championship, his mother exlaimed: ‘He said he’d bring home the bacon, and the honey boy has gone and done it.’ The Oxford Companion to American History suggests that this ‘added a new phrase to the vernacular’. Unlikely, given the Dunmow Flitch connection, and yet the OED2’s earliest citation is not until 1924 (in P. G. Wodehouse).
bring on the girls (or dancing girls)! Let’s move on to something more entertaining. What any host might say to cheer up his guests, but probably originating in a literal suggestion from some bored American impresario as to what was needed to pep up a show in the 1920s. From P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, Bring On the Girls, Chap. 1 (1954): ‘[There is] a dull spot in the second act…Lending to the discussion the authority of long experience and uttering the slogan which he probably learned at his mother’s knee, [the impresario] says, “Bring on the girls!” It is the panacea that never fails. It dates back, according to the great Bert Williams, to the days of ancient Egypt…’
bring out your dead This was the cry of the carters who went about at night collecting corpses during the Great Plague of London in 1665. Source not found. Quoted in Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co., ‘An Unsavoury Interlude’ (1899).
Britain can take it During the Second World War, slogans rained down upon the hapless British as profusely as German bombs. The Ministry of Information, in blunderbuss fashion, fired away with as much material as possible in the hope of hitting something. Some of the slogans were brilliant, others were quite the reverse – hence the Ministry’s abandonment of ‘Britain can take it’ in December 1941. ‘While the public appreciated due recognition of their resolute qualities,’ wrote Ian McLaine in Ministry of Morale (1979), ‘they resented too great an emphasis on the stereotyped image of the Britisher in adversity as a wise-cracking Cockney. They were irritated by the propaganda which represented their grim experience as a sort of particularly torrid Rugby match.’ The notion was resurrected by Winston Churchill in May 1945 in a tribute to Cockney fortitude: ‘No one ever asked for peace because London was suffering. London was like a great rhinoceros, a great hippopotamus, saying: “Let them do their worst. London can take it.” London could take anything.’
British See AND THE BEST; BE BRITISH.
(the) British are coming, the British are coming! Doubt has been cast on Paul Revere’s reputed cry to warn people of approaching British troops during the American War of Independence. On his night ride of 18 April 1775, from Boston to Lexington, it is more likely that he cried ‘The regulars are out’ and, besides, there were many other night-riders involved. Hence, however, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, the title of a film (US 1966). Although this was an obvious allusion to Revere’s cry, it has also been said that these were the last words uttered by US Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, before he committed suicide by jumping from his office window at the Pentagon in 1949. In fact, two months after being replaced as Defense Secretary, Forrestal did commit suicide, but by jumping from a 16th-floor window at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he was being treated for depression. It is not recorded that he said any words before jumping. All that is known is that he broke off from copying out a translation of Sophocles before killing himself. It is, however, apparently true (at least according to Daniel Yergin, The Shattered Peace, 1977) that within a week of losing his job, Forrestal became deranged and walked the streets saying, ‘The Russians are coming! I’ve seen Russian soldiers!’
(a) broad church A body or group or organization, of any kind, that takes a liberal and tolerant attitude to its members’ beliefs or activities. The use derives from the designation ‘Broad Church’ as applied to the Church of England from the mid-19th century onwards, meaning that it was broad enough to encompass a wide variety of beliefs and attitudes. According to Benjamin Jowett, the Master of Balliol College, Oxford, the term in relation to the Church of England was coined by the poet Arthur Hugh Clough.
broad sunlit uplands In Winston Churchill’s long speaking career, there was one thematic device he frequently resorted to for his perorations. It appears in many forms but may be summarized as the ‘broad, sunlit uplands’ approach. In his collected speeches, there are some thirteen occasions when he made use of the construction. ‘The level plain…a land of peace and plenty…the sunshine of a more gentle and a more generous age’ (1906); ‘I earnestly trust…that by your efforts our country may emerge from this period of darkness and peril once more in the sunlight of a peaceful time’ (at the end of a speech on 19 September 1915 when Churchill’s own position was precarious following the failure of the Gallipoli campaign); in his ‘finest hour’ speech, Churchill hoped that, ‘The life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands’ (1940); ‘It is an uphill road we have to tread, but if we reject the cramping, narrowing path of socialist restrictions, we shall surely find a way – and a wise and tolerant government – to those broad uplands where plenty, peace and justice reign’ (1951, prior to the General Election).
broke See ALL HELL.
(a) broken reed A weak support; something not to be trusted or leant on.