A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
to have a) cat in Hell’s chance Meaning, ‘to have no chance whatsoever’ – the full expression makes the phrase clear: ‘No more chance than a cat in hell without claws’ – which is recorded in Grose (1796).
cat on a hot tin roof From the (mostly US) expression ‘as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof’ that derives from the common English expression ‘like a cat on hot bricks’, meaning ‘ill-at-ease, jumpy’. John Ray in his Collection of English Proverbs (1670–8) has ‘to go like a cat upon a hot bake stone’. Another English proverbial expression (known by 1903) is ‘Nervous as cats’. In the play Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1955; film US 1958) by Tennessee Williams, the ‘cat’ is Maggie, Brick’s wife, ‘whose frayed vivacity’, wrote Kenneth Tynan, ‘derives from the fact that she is sexually ignored by her husband’.
cat’s eyes Lines of light-reflecting studs placed to demarcate traffic lanes at night. Known as such by 1940. Hence, ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham, nickname of Group Capt. John Cunningham (1917–2002), distinguished RAF night fighter pilot in the Second World War. Even when navigational aids were not available he managed to shoot down twelve German aircraft.
(a) cat’s paw Meaning ‘someone used as a tool by another’, this term was known in Britain by 1657 and chiefly derives from one of La Fontaine’s fables, ‘The Monkey and the Cat’, in which a monkey persuades a cat to pick up chestnuts off a hot stove. ‘The Cat’s Paw’ is the title of a painting (1824) by Sir Edwin Landseer, illustrating the story. In nautical use, a ‘cat’s paw’ is the mark made by a puff or gust of wind on an otherwise calm sea – possibly an allusion to cats dabbing at the surface of fish ponds.
(a) cat that walks alone A self-possessed, independent person. ‘I am the cat that walks alone’ was a favourite expression of the newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook (1879–1964). He was alluding to ‘The Cat That Walked By Himself’ in The Just-So Stories (1902) by Rudyard Kipling.
caught in the act Caught in the very act for which retribution will be forthcoming. Known by 1655. In Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion (1818), there is rather ‘caught in the fact’. Compare caught red-handed, where a murderer still has blood on his hands.
caught up in a sinister maze (or web) of plot and double-cross Publishing and book-reviewing cliché (in various combinations) when promoting and discussing (usually) spy fiction and thrillers. ‘A sinister web of power, lust and perversion binds the psychotic killer hunting him down to the traumatic childhood murder of his mother’ – The Times (19 November 1994); ‘Turow and Grisham are often lumped together as operators in the same territory, but separately they tend very different gardens: where Turow lures the reader into an intricate and sinister maze, with Grisham you never get beyond raking and hoeing and pulling up the weeds’ – Sunday Times (22 January 1995); ‘Giorgio Ambrosoli, the young Milanese lawyer whose sleuthing, begun in 1974, brought down the Sicilian banking tycoon Michele Sindona. The latter’s sinister web linked the Vatican, the Mafia, the Christian Democrat Party, and the secret P2 masonic lodge’ – The European (7 April 1995); ‘Niamh went for one more session. “They promised me the sun, moon and stars. They said I’d be put in touch with other women and that, they would pass on information as it became available.” She heard nothing. “They left me in darkness and in fear.” By the time the results of the virus test arrived, the sense of being in a sinister maze had deepened’ – The Irish Times (8 April 1995); ‘Secret government papers released today at the Public Record Office in Kew reveal a web of intrigue and deceit by state and monarchy that has remained hidden for 66 years’ – The Independent (30 January 2003).
causing grave concern Journalistic and official cliché – when warning of some imminent unpleasantness, especially a person’s death. ‘While neither of the men involved in either of the Bishops Avenue deals is in any way crooked, the astonishing scale of the Eastern bloc spending spree is causing grave concern among the capital’s most senior crime fighters, who fear it signals the arrival of the Russian mafia, or the Organizatsiya, as it is known and feared on the violent streets of Moscow’ – Evening Standard (London) (6 May 1994); ‘As air traffic within Europe is predicted to rise by around 60 per cent over the next ten years, the potential for future problems is still a grave concern’ – The European (10 June 1994); ‘The Glasgow women’s rights campaigner Sheena Duncan said the sheriff’s remarks had caused grave concern. She added: “It is a simplistic analysis of the problem, particularly when you think about what women suffer”’ – The Scotsman (24 June 1994); ‘A public meeting in Bansha, Co Tipperary, resolved on June 26th, 1926: “That we the citizens desire to express our grave concern at the circulation of undesirable literature, which constitutes a grave danger to the moral and national welfare of the country, and we urge upon the Government the need for immediate legislation on the lines recommended by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, or on other equally adequate lines” – The Irish Times (2 January 1995); ‘Listen, for instance, to Father Diarmuid Connolly, chairman of the board of management of St Brigid’s School (which has 930 children on the roll) and parish priest of Castleknock, who says: “The current use of the land as playing pitches has been a real safety valve and the proposal to sell them for housing is causing us grave concern”’ – The Irish Times (28 January 1995).
caviare to the general A famously misunderstood phrase meaning ‘of no interest to common folk’. It has nothing to do with giving expensive presents of caviare to unappreciative military gentlemen. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, II.ii.434, the Prince refers to a play which, he recalls, ‘pleased not the million, ‘twas caviare to the general’ (the general public, in other words). The Arden edition notes that in circa 1600, when the play was written, caviare was a novel delicacy. It was probably inedible to those who had not yet acquired a taste for it.
Cecil See AFTER YOU.
(the) centre of the universe Label applied to a place where it’s all happening though, originally, applied to the Almighty: ‘God is the centre of the universe’ – Bailey, Centration (1730–6). Compare HUB OF THE UNIVERSE.
(the) century of the common man Label applied to the 20th century (not entirely successfully) by Henry Wallace (1888–1965), American Democratic Vice-President. ‘The century on which we are entering – the century which will come out of this war – can be and must be the century of the common man’ – speech (8 May 1942).
certain substances A police euphemism for drugs, chiefly used in the UK where restrictions are placed on the reporting of criminal activity before a charge has been made. Starting in the 1960s, newspapers would report raids on pop stars’ houses and conclude: ‘Certain substances were taken away for analysis.’ From the episode of BBC TV’s Monty Python’s Flying Circus broadcast on 16 November 1969: Policeman: ‘I must warn you, sir, that outside I have police dog Josephine, who is not only armed, and trained to sniff out certain substances, but is also a junkie.’
(a) chain reaction A series of linked events, a self-maintaining process. Originally scientific: ‘a chemical or nuclear reaction forming intermediate products which react with the original substance and are repeatedly renewed’. Known by the 1930s. ‘If you publish a candid article about any community, giving actual names of people…you are…braving a chain reaction of lawsuits, riots and civil commotion’ – Saturday Evening Post (22 March 1947); ‘If we think they can be helped by exercise, we prescribe it. As a result, they are often encouraged to improve their diet and lifestyle and give up smoking. They can also improve their self-image. It’s a chain reaction’ – The Independent (3 May 1994); ‘Scotsman John Cleland was the unluckiest man of the day after powering his Vauxhall Cavalier into the lead, passing Radisich and Soper from the standing start. Four cars were involved in a chain reaction accident which led to the red flag being brought out to halt the race’ – Daily Telegraph (17 October 1994).
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