A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
her former home, has to watch the slow death of her eight-year-old son (‘Little Willie’), but is unable to reveal her true identity.
dead and your arse cold See IT WILL ALL BE.
dead as a doornail Completely dead. In the Middle Ages, the doornail was the name given to the knob on which the knocker struck: ‘As this is frequently knocked on the head, it cannot be supposed to have much life in it’ – Brewer (1894). The phrase occurs as early as 1350, then again in Langland’s Piers Plowman (1362). Shakespeare uses it a couple of times, in the usual form and, as in Henry IV, Part 2, V.iii.117 (1597): Falstaff: ‘What, is the old king dead!’ Pistol: ‘As nail in door!’
(he’s) dead but he won’t lie down Partridge/Catch Phrases dates this saying from around 1910. A song with the title ‘He’s Dead But He Won’t Lie Down’ was written by Will Haines, James Harpur and Maurice Beresford for Gracie Fields to sing in the film Looking on the Bright Side (UK 1931). A separate song with this title was written by Johnny Mercer (with music by Hoagy Carmichael) for the film Timberjack (1955).
dead in the water Helpless, lacking support, finished. Suddenly popular in the late 1980s and undoubtedly of North American origin. In other words, an opponent or antagonist is like a dead fish. He is still in the water and not swimming anywhere. ‘Mr John Leese, editor of both the Standard and the Evening News, replied: “This obviously means that Mr Maxwell’s [news]paper is dead in the water”’ – The Guardian (2 March 1987).
deadlier than the male See FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.
deadly earnest Really serious. Known by 1880. A cliché phrase by the mid-20th century. ‘A recital which had more of the air of friendly music-making at home than the deadly earnest aspiration usually encountered on this platform’ – The Times (1963); ‘The Getaway is in deadly earnest about its deadly games. Without a trace of irony, it often looks crude and cruel’ – Independent on Sunday (3 July 1994); ‘All good knockabout stuff, but Elvis is in deadly earnest about his new venture’ – The Sunday Times (27 November 1994).
(to wait for) dead men’s shoes To wait for someone to die in order to inherit his possessions or position. Known by 1530. ‘Who waitth for dead men shoen, shall go long barefoote’ – included in John Heywood, Proverbs (1546).
dead men tell no tales A proverbial phrase that, oddly, does not seem to have been used as the title of a film (yet), though there was a TV movie (US 1971) with it, based on a novel by Kelly Roos. Apperson has it first appearing in the form ‘The dead can tell no tales’ in 1681. E. W. Hornung entitled a novel Dead Men Tell No Tales in 1899. ‘Dead men don’t tell tales’ appears in Walter de la Mare, The Return, Chap. 27 (1910).
(a) dead parrot Meaning, ‘something that is quite incapable of resuscitation’. This expression derives from the most famous of all Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketches, first shown on BBC TV (7 December 1969). A man (named ‘Praline’ in the script) who has just bought a parrot that turns out to be dead, registers a complaint with the pet shop owner in these words: ‘This parrot is no more. It’s ceased to be. It’s expired. It’s gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life it rests in peace. It would be pushing up the daisies if you hadn’t nailed it to the perch. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It’s an exparrot.’ In early 1988, there were signs of the phrase becoming an established idiom when it was applied to a controversial policy document drawn up as the basis for a merged Liberal/Social Democratic Party. Then The Observer commented (8 May 1988): ‘Mr Steel’s future – like his document – was widely regarded as a “dead parrot”. Surely this was the end of his 12-year reign as Liberal leader?’ In October 1990, Margaret Thatcher belatedly came round to the phrase (fed by a speechwriter, no doubt) and called the Liberal Democrats a ‘dead parrot’, at the Tory Party Conference. When the Liberals won a by-election at Eastbourne the same month, the Tory party chairman Kenneth Baker said the ‘dead parrot’ had ‘twitched’. Whether the phrase will have much further life, ONLY TIME WILL TELL. As indeed it did: on 6 October 1998, The Sun carried a front page photo of a dead parrot with the head of the Conservative Party leader William Hague superimposed. The headline was: ‘This party is no more…it has ceased to be…this is an EX-party.’
(a) dead ringer Meaning ‘one person closely resembling another’, the expression derives from horse-racing in the USA, where a ‘ringer’ has been used since the 19th century to describe a horse fraudulently substituted for another in a race. ‘Dead’ here means ‘exact’, as in ‘dead heat’. Dead Ringers was the title of a BBC Radio 4 comedy series (from 2000) featuring topical impersonations.
(a) deafening silence A silence that by being so noticeable is significant. Known by 1968. ‘Conservative and Labour MPs have complained of a “deafening silence” over the affair’ – The Times (28 August 1985); ‘Many in the Rosyth area would like to know why he has maintained a deafening silence on the issue since it was first mooted in 1986’ – letter to the editor in The Scotsman (19 August 1994); ‘As the internationals begin to multiply in the runup to the World Cup, it is deflating to realise that in too many aspects, the game in Britain is in a mess. The deafening silence which has greeted a sequence of discreditable events in recent months is shaming enough’ – The Daily Telegraph (5 November 1994).
deal See BIG DEAL.
dear boy Mode of address, now considered rather affected and often employed when poking fun at the speech of actors and similar folk. If the many people who have tried to imitate Noël Coward’s clipped delivery over the years are to be believed, the words he uttered most often in his career were ‘Dear boy’. His friend Cole Lesley claimed, however, in The Life of Noël Coward (1978) that, ‘He rarely used this endearment, though I expect it is now too late for me to be believed.’ William Fairchild, who wrote dialogue for the part of Coward in the film Star! (US 1968), was informed by the Master, after he had checked the script: ‘Too many Dear Boys, dear boy.’
dear John Name for a type of letter sent by a woman to a man and telling him that she is breaking off their relationship. Its origins are said to lie in US and Canadian armed forces’ slang of the Second World War when faithless girls back home had to find a way to admit they were carrying on with or maybe had become pregnant by other men. It subsequently became the name of a letter informing a man that he had given the woman VD. Perhaps even AIDS? Known by 1945.
dear mother See SELL THE PIG.
death See AND DEATH; ANGEL OF; HIS.
death and the maiden A phrase originally made famous by ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ – a song (D. 531) by Schubert (1817), which was a setting of a poem by Matthias Claudius (a brief exchange between the Maiden and Death). The theme was a subject that fascinated northern European painters in the 14th/15th centuries, especially Hans Baldung Grien, whose Death and the Maiden (1517) is now to be seen at Basel. It was later re-used by Schubert as the title of his notable String Quartet in D Minor (D. 810). More recently, Death and the Maiden was the title of a play (1992; filmed UK/US/France 1994) by Ariel Dorfman. His original version was in Spanish and called La Muerta y la doncella.
death by chocolate Name of a recipe for an extremely rich type of chocolate cake, described as a ‘cake/mousse dessert’ – probably of US origin. Gallows humour by chocoholics who are happily aware of the possible consequence of overindulgence in their favourite food. Known by 1990. By 2003, there were signs that, possibly in emulation of this coinage, a format phrase ‘death by—’ was emerging. TV programmes were entitled Death By Home and Death By Gardening (showing video clips of household mishaps) and headlines included ‘Death by indifference’ and ‘Death by embarrassment’.
(a/the) death knell