Nigel Rees - A Word In Your Shell-Like

aye, aye, that’s yer lot!Signing-off line of Jimmy Wheeler (1910–73), a British Cockney comedian with a fruity voice redolent of beer, jellied eels and winkles. He would appear in a bookmaker’s suit, complete with spiv moustache and hat, and play the violin. At the end of his concluding fiddle piece, he would break off and intone these words.

aye carambaSee EAT MY SHORTS.

aye, well – ye ken noo!‘Well, you know better now, don’t you!’ – said after someone has admitted ignorance or has retold an experience that taught a lesson. It is the punch line of an old Scottish story about a Presbyterian minister preaching a hell-fire sermon whose peroration went something like this: ‘And in the last days ye’ll look up from the bottomless pit and ye’ll cry, “Lord, Lord, we did na ken [we did not know]”, and the Guid Lord in his infinite mercy will reply…“Aye, well – ye ken noo!”’

ay thang yew!A distinctive pronunciation of ‘I thank you!’ picked up from the cry of London bus conductors by Arthur Askey for the BBC radio show Band Waggon (1938–39) and used by him thereafter. He commented (1979): ‘I didn’t know I was saying it till people started to shout it at me. ’ Later, as I Thank You , it became the title of one of Askey’s films (1941).

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