A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
machine age that was taking over. By the 1980s, the cards were no longer necessary. A slogan of the 1960s’ student revolution (as seen at the Berkeley riots of 1964) was: ‘I am a human being – do not fold, spindle or mutilate me.’ A graffito (quoted 1974) read: ‘I am a masochist – please spindle, fold or mutilate.’ Do Not Fold Spindle or Mutilate was the title of a film (US 1971).
do not pass ‘Go’ An enduring phrase from Monopoly, the board game invented by an unemployed salesman, Charles Darrow, in 1929, the year of the Wall Street crash. It is based on fantasies of buying up real estate in Atlantic City. Players begin on the square marked ‘Go’, may possibly return to that square to ‘collect $200 salary as you pass’, or land on the ‘Go to jail’ square, or draw a ‘Chance’ card with the penalty: ‘GO TO JAIL / MOVE DIRECTLY TO JAIL / DO NOT PASS “GO” / DO NOT COLLECT $200.’ In the UK version, the sum is £200. A Sunday Mirror editorial (3 May 1981) stated: ‘The laws of contempt are the ones under which editors and other media folk can be sent straight to jail without passing Go.’ A businessman said to a woman who had paid for her husband to be beaten up: ‘If the police find out you are paying, you will go to jail, directly to jail, you will not pass “go” or collect £200’ – report of trial in The Times (30 November 1982).
don’t ask! Phrase usually inserted in parentheses to warn the reader or listener not to inquire too deeply about a piece of information that is being given – because it might be irrelevant to the main point of what is being related or may reveal a fact that is embarrassing to somebody. Noticed by the late 1990s. ‘So whose pointy-headed children did Pendennis spot arriving at the exclusive – £7,000 a year – Dragon School in Oxford the other day? Don’t ask!’ – The Observer (9 February 2003).
don’t ask the price – it’s a penny An early slogan from the great British store Marks & Spencer. The firm had its origins in a stall set up at Leeds market in 1884 by a 21-year-old Jewish refugee from Poland. Michael Marks’s slogan has become part of commercial folklore. It was written on a sign over the penny section – not all his goods were that cheap. He had simply hit upon the idea of classifying goods according to price.
don’t be filthy! Don’t use bad language or make obscene suggestions – but an expression usually applied following a double entendre or something quite innocent. Used by Arthur Askey in the BBC radio show Band Waggon (from 1938).
don’t be fright! Catchphrase of Sirdani, the British radio magician (sic) in circa 1944.
don’t be misled See READY AYE READY.
don’t be vague – ask for Haig Slogan for Haig whisky since about 1936. The origin is to some extent lost in a Scotch mist because many of the John Haig & Co. archives were destroyed during the Second World War. However, the agency thought to be responsible was C. J. Lytle Ltd. An ad survives from 1933 with the wording, ‘Don’t be vague, order Haig’; another from 1935 with ‘Why be vague? Ask for Haig’; and it seems that the enduring form arose shortly after this. It has been jocularly suggested that Haig’s premium brand Dimple (which is sold as Pinch in North America) should be promoted with the slogan, ‘Don’t be simple, ask for Dimple’.
don’t blow on it, Herbert, fan it with your hat What you say to someone who is attempting to drink very hot tea or soup – usually pronounced, ‘Don’t blow on it, ‘Erbert, fan it wiv yer ‘at.’ As so often, the origin seems to lie with Punch, in particular F. H. Townsend’s cartoon from the issue of 9 May 1906. Two young women are seated, for no apparent reason, in front of a labelled bust of Hogarth (locating the scene in Leicester Square, London, where Joseph Durham’s 1875 bust is still in place), and one says: ‘Such a nice young man took me out to dinner last night – such a well-mannered man. D’you know, when the coffee come and ‘e’d poured it on ‘is saucer, instead of blowing on it like a common person, ‘e fanned it with ‘is ‘at!’ The instruction specifically to Herbert may have been inserted in a later music-hall song. A similar line occurs in the Judy Garland movie The Harvey Girls (US 1946).
don’t call us, we’ll call you What theatre directors reputedly say to auditionees, the implication being that ‘we’ will never actually get round to calling ‘you’. Now more widely applied to anyone unwelcome who is seeking a favour. OED2 finds no example before 1969. However, a Punch cartoon on 11 October 1961 showed the European Council of Ministers saying to a British diplomat: ‘Thank you. Don’t call us: we’ll call you’; and in the film The Barefoot Contessa (US 1954), a show business character says: ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ In Some Like It Hot (US 1959), there is a ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Also used in a situation like this is the phrase: we’ll let you know – as during an audition in the BBC radio show Round the Horne (6 June 1966).
don’t come the raw prawn (with me)! ‘Don’t try to put one over on me, delude or deceive me’ – the archetypal Australianism, dating from around the time of the Second World War. A raw prawn is presumably held to be less palatable than a cooked one, but lurking in the background is the abusive Australian use of ‘you prawn!’ to signify that someone is, like a prawn, sexless.
don’t cry for me, Argentina Title phrase of a song from the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita (1976). There is an unexplained conjunction between this line and the inscription (in Spanish) which appears on Eva Perón’s bronze tomb in Recoleta cemetery, Buenos Aires, and begins with words to the effect, ‘Do not cry for me when I am far away.’ But Eva’s body was not returned to Argentina until 1976, and the inscription (of which there is more than one) in Recoleta cemetery bears the date ‘1982’. Could it have been inspired by the song rather than the other way round? Hence, however, Don’t Cry for Me, Sergeant Major, title of a book (1983) by Robert McGowan and Jeremy Hands, giving an ‘other ranks’ view of the Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina.
don’t do anything I wouldn’t do See BE GOOD; IF YOU CAN’T BE.
don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes A suggestion that you should not use up your ammunition (metaphorically speaking) before it can be effective. Or, wait until you are right up close to a problem before you begin to deal with it. In origin, a historical quotation. At the Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) in the American War of Independence, the instruction given by either US General Israel Pitman or, more likely, Colonel William Prescott was: ‘Men, you are all marksmen – don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes.’ However, Frederick the Great had earlier said something very similar at Prague on 6 May 1757.
don’t force it, Phoebe! A catchphrase from the British comedian Charlie Chester (1914–97) in his BBC radio show Stand Easy (1946–50). From that show also came the name Whippit Kwick, a cat burglar in a ‘radio strip cartoon’. Leslie Bridgmont, the producer, recalled in Leslie Bridgmont Presents (1949) how the name swept the country. Wherever he went on bus, Tube or train he would hear someone say, ‘Who’s that over there?’, to which the reply would come, ‘Whippit Kwick!’ Chester remembered (1979): ‘Bruce Woodcock, the boxer, used to run around the streets chanting the jungle chants from the same strip cartoon: Down in the jungle, living in a tent, / Better than a pre-fab – no rent! – that sort of thing. Once at Wembley, just before he threw a right to put the other fellow out for the count, some wag in the audience yelled out, “Whippit Kwick!” he did – and it went in.’ Also from Stand Easy came wotcher, Tish! / wotcher, Tosh! – an exchange between two barrow boys, and yet another catchphrase: ‘This was really a joke on my missus. My wife broke her arm and was sitting in the audience. I told Len Marten to keep coming up to me with the line I say, what a smasher! Then, at the end of the programme, the resolving gag was: “Len, what do you mean by all this, ‘I say, what a smasher’ business?” He said, “The blonde in the third row!” And there’s this broken arm sticking out like a beacon. Strangely enough, I went down to