A Word In Your Shell-Like. Nigel Rees
meaning an attractive girl, as coming from the Scots ‘a wee smasher’. Iona and Peter Opie in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959) show how the phrase penetrated: ‘Girls, 13, Swansea, 1952’ who recited: ‘I say, what a smasher, / Betty Grable’s getting fatter, / Pick a brick and throw it at her. / If you wish to steal a kiss, / I say, what a smasher.’ Chester also used the phrase I can hear you! which first arose when he noticed somebody talking about him in a rehearsal room.
don’t forget the diver! Of all the many catchphrases sired by the BBC radio show ITMA (1939–49), the one with the most interesting origin was spoken by Horace Percival as the Diver. It was derived from memories that the star of the show, Tommy Handley, had of an actual man who used to dive off the pier at New Brighton, on the River Mersey, in the 1920s/30s. ‘Don’t forget the diver, sir, don’t forget the diver,’ the man would say, collecting money. ‘Every penny makes the water warmer, sir.’ The radio character first appeared in 1940 and no lift went down for the next few years without somebody using the Diver’s main catchphrase or his other one, I’m going down now, sir! – which bomber pilots in the Second World War would also use when about to make a descent. From ITMA’s VE-Day edition (1945): Effects: Knocking – Handley: ‘Who’s that knocking on the tank?’ The Diver: ‘Don’t forget the diver, sir – don’t forget the diver.’ Handley: ‘Lumme, it’s Deepend Dan. Listen, as the war’s over, what are you doing?’ The Diver: ‘I’m going down now, sir.’ Effects: Bubbles. But who was the original diver? James Gashram wrote to The Listener (21 August 1980): ‘My grandfather McMaster, who came from…County Donegal, knew Michael Shaughnessy, the one-legged ex-soldier, in the late 1890s, before he left for the Boer War and the fighting that cost him his leg. About 1910, Shaughnessy…settled in Bebington on the Wirral peninsula… Before the internal combustion engine, [he] used to get a lift every weekday from Bebington to New Brighton in a horse-drawn bread-cart owned by the Bromborough firm of Bernard Hughes. The driver of that cart, apparently, was always envious of the “easy” money Shaughnessy got at New Brighton – sometimes up to two pounds a day in the summer – and would invariably say to him on the return to Bebington, ‘Don’t forget the driver’. Shaughnessy rarely did forget. It was many years later, some time in the early 1930s, that, remembering the phrase so well, he adapted it to his own purposes by changing it to “Don’t forget the diver”, and shouted it to the people arriving from Liverpool.’
don’t forget the fruit gums, mum! A slogan for Rowntree’s Fruit Gums (1958–61) in the UK and coined by copywriter Roger Musgrave at the S. T. Garland agency. Market research showed that most fruit gums were bought by women but eaten by children. Later on, the line fell foul of advertising watchdogs keen to save parents from nagging. Accordingly, ‘Mum’ became ‘chum’.
don’t get mad, get even One of several axioms said to come from the Boston-Irish political jungle or, more precisely, from Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969), father of President Kennedy. Don’t Get Mad Get Even is the title of a book (1983) – ‘a manual for retaliation’ – by Alan Abel.
don’t get me mad, see! Phrase frequently used by those impersonating the actor James Cagney (1899–1986) in gangster mode, but it is not possible to say which of his films he says it in. Sometimes remembered as, ‘Jest don’t make me mad, see?’
don’t get your knickers in a twist! ‘Don’t make a drama out of a crisis; don’t get worked up or confused about something; don’t get excited or you’ll make the problem worse.’ As ‘knickers’ (for female underwear) is solely a Britishism, this phrase has not travelled. In use by 1971.
don’t go down the mine, Daddy A phrase used as a warning to anyone against doing something. When Winston Churchill visited Berlin in 1945 and was preparing to enter Hitler’s bunker, his daughter Mary said to him, ‘Don’t go down the mine, Daddy.’ It comes from a tear-jerking ballad popular with soldiers during the First World War and written by Will Geddes and Robert Donnelly in 1910. The title is, correctly, ‘Don’t Go Down In the Mine, Dad.’
don’t go near the water Phrase (one of two) derived from the nursery rhyme (best known in the USA): ‘Mother, may I go out to swim? / Yes, my darling daughter; / Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, / But don’t go near the water.’ Even Peter and Iona Opie were unable to date this rhyme, but it may not go back beyond 1900. Don’t Go Near the Water was the title of a film (US 1957) about sailors stationed on a South Pacific island – based on a William Brinkley novel. ‘Yes, My Darling Daughter’ was a popular song of 1941 – the Andrews Sisters recorded it – and there was also a play with the title in the late 1930s, subsequently filmed (US 1939). No, My Darling Daughter was the title of a film comedy (UK 1961).
don’t have a cow, man See EAT MY SHORTS.
(you) don’t have to be snippy about it An expression used on a famous occasion. During the night after the US presidential election of November 2000, the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, had phoned his Republican rival, George W. Bush, and announced that he was withdrawing his concession of victory (because of voting irregularities that subsequently delayed a final result for several days). The New York Times reported that Bush said: ‘You mean to tell me, Mr Vice President, that you’re retracting your concession?’ To which Gore responded, ‘You don’t have to be snippy about it.’ The Times’s word expert, William Safire, glossed ‘snippy’ as ‘given to cutting off tiny pieces’, thereby seeming ‘curt, fault-finding, supercilious’ and hence ‘touchy, disrespectful, on your high horse, having an attitude.’ In its original citation by John Bartlett, A Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), ‘snippy’ was categorised as a ‘woman’s word’. It has remained an exclusively American expression since then.
don’t hold your breath! ‘Don’t expect results too soon.’ Perhaps related to the child’s threat ‘I’ll hold my breath until you…’ Not noted before the 1970s. ‘I think the recession’s over, you know’ – ‘I’m not holding my breath.’
don’t just stand there: do something! An amusing exhortation dating from the 1940s, perhaps from services’ slang. Now sometimes reversed: ‘Don’t do anything – just stand there!’
don’t leave home without it Slogan for the American Express credit card. Current in the USA by 1981. Bob Hope once did a parody on a TV special in which he appeared as the Pope carrying his Vatican Express card (‘Don’t leave Rome without it’).
don’t make me laugh Derisive response to something said or suggested. Possibly a shortened version of ‘don’t make me laugh…I’ve got a cracked lip/split lip/cut my lip.’ Partridge/Catch Phrases suggests that these longer phrases, known by the early 1900s, were moribund by the 1940s.
don’t mention the war! Instruction from Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) to the staff of his hotel in BBC TV Fawlty Towers, ‘The Germans’, Series 1, Episode 6 (24 October 1975). Needless to say, he and they go right ahead and do so in this, probably the most remembered episode of the comedy series. It has become a sort of catchphrase. For example, when the England football team defeated Germany 5–1 in a World Cup qualifying game (1 September 2001), both the News of the World and the Independent on Sunday, headlined the story, ‘Don’t mention the score!’
don’t panic! Injunction written on the cover of the eponymous fictional guide featured in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the radio series (1978) and in the preface to the novel (1979) by Douglas Adams. See also under PERMISSION TO SPEAK, SIR!
don’t quote me! Injunction, usually given in a light and informal manner, when advancing a possibly unreliable fact or opinion. Possibly from no earlier than the mid-20th century. ‘Of course, I may be wrong – don’t quote me, for Heaven’s sake’ – Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye