Nigel Rees - A Word In Your Shell-Like

all good things must come to an endA proverbial expression meaning ‘pleasure cannot go on for ever’. Spoken at the completion of absolutely any activity that is enjoyable (but usually said with a touch of piety). CODP points out that the addition of the word ‘good’ to this proverb is a recent development. ‘To all things must be an end’ can be traced back to the 15th century. There is a version from 1440, and, as ‘Everything has an end’, the idea appears in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (1385). The Book of Common Prayer version of Psalm 119:96 is: ‘I see that all things come to an end.’

all hands above the bedclothes, girlsSee HANDS OFF COCKS.

all hands on deck!Everybody help. Obviously of naval origin – but now used in any emergency, serious or slight, domestic or otherwise. Since the 19th century?

all hell broke loosePandemonium broke out. This descriptive phrase probably derives its popularity from its use in Milton’s Paradise Lost , Bk 4, line 917 (1667), when the Archangel Gabriel speaks to Satan: ‘Wherefore with thee / Came not all hell broke loose.’ But Milton had been anticipated in this by the author of a Puritan pamphlet, Hell Broke Loose: or, a Catalogue of Many of the Spreading Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies of These Times, for Which We are to be Humbled (1646). Also, in Robert Greene’s play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay ( circa 1589), the character Miles has the line: ‘Master, master, master up! Hell’s broken loose.’ And, as ‘I thinke, hell breake louse’, it occurs in a play called Misogonus (1577). As an idiomatic phrase it was certainly well established by 1738 when Jonathan Swift compiled his Polite Conversation. There is ‘A great Noise below’ and Lady Smart exclaims: ‘Hey, what a clattering is there; one would think Hell was broke loose’.

all human life is thereAdvertising line used to promote the News of the World newspaper ( circa 1958) and taken from Henry James, ‘Madonna of the Future’ (1879): ‘Cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats – all human life is there.’ In 1981, Maurice Smelt, the advertising copywriter, commented: ‘“All human life is there” was my idea, but I don’t, of course, pretend that they were my words. I simply lifted them from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. I didn’t bother to tell the client that they were from Henry James, suspecting that, after the “Henry James – who he?” stage, he would come up with tiresome arguments about being too high-hat for his readership. I did check whether we were clear on copyright, which we were by a year or two…I do recall its use as baseline in a tiny little campaign trailing a series that earned the News of the World a much-publicized but toothless rebuke from the Press Council. The headline of that campaign was: “‘I’ve been a naughty girl,’ says Diana Dors”. The meiosis worked, as the News of the World knew it would. They ran an extra million copies of the first issue of the series.’

all I know is what I read in the papersI’m just an ordinary guy. From a saying much used by Will Rogers, the American cowboy comedian of the 1920s. For example, from The Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President (1927): ‘Dear Mr Coolidge: Well all I know is just what I read in the papers.’

(it’s) all in a lifetime(or all in one’s lifetime). ‘That’s life, IT’S ALL PART OF LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT’ – reflective, philosophical phrase, implying resignation to whatever happens or has happened. Mostly American use? Since 1849. P. G. Wodehouse concludes a letter (23 July 1923) in which he describes how he was knocked down by a car: ‘But, my gosh! doesn’t it just show that we are here today and gone tomorrow!…Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime!’ Hence, the title of Walter Allen’s novel All In a Lifetime (1959).

(it’s) all in the familyA saying with the implication that there’s no need to be over-punctilious or stand on ceremony, or fuss too much about obligations, because nobody outside the family is affected and those who are in the family will understand. For example, ‘it’s okay for me to borrow money or clothing from my sister without asking her first…because it’s all in the family.’ Compare, ‘We are all friends here!’ All In the Family was the title of the American TV version (1971–83) of the BBC’s sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. The respective main characters were Archie Bunker and Alf Garnett, racists and bigots both. The phrase had a double meaning as the show’s title: that Archie’s rants would be mortifying if overheard by anyone outside the family and that such wildly different types of people find themselves related to each other. There is not a trace of the phrase in the OED2. However, there is an 1874 citation, ‘all outside the family, tribe or nation were usually held as enemies’, which may hint at the possible existence of an opposite construction. The phrase occurs in Chap. 25 of James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (1823): ‘David says, in the Psalms – no, it was Solomon, but it was all in the family – Solomon said, there was a time for all things; and, in my humble opinion, a fishing party is not the moment for discussing important subjects.’ Then there is Herman Melville, Moby Dick , Chap. 21 (1851) in which Elijah is trying to warn Ishmael and Queequeg against the Pequod and its captain: ‘“Morning to ye! morning to ye!” he rejoined, again moving off. “Oh! I was going to warn ye against – but never mind, never mind – it’s all one, all in the family too; – sharp frost this morning, ain’t it?”’ From Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona , Chap. 9 (1893): ‘It was old Lovat that managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it’ll be all in the family.’ From Bret Harte, A Ward of Colonel Starbottle’s (1903): ‘“Don’t mind us, Colonel,” said Judge Beeswinger, “it’s all in the family here, you know! And – now I look at the girl – hang it all! she does favor you, old man. Ha! ha!”’ From Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, Chap. 32 (1904): ‘All hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my own vessel. It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.’ All these citations – even the Stevenson – confirm a likely American origin for the phrase. It is hardly known elsewhere.

all jam and JerusalemA popular misconception of the local Women’s Institute groups in the UK is that their members are solely concerned with making jam, flower arranging and singing the Blake/Parry anthem ‘Jerusalem’. This encapsulation is said to date from the 1920s. Simon Goodenough’s history of the movement was called Jam and Jerusalem (1977).

all joints on the table shall/will be carvedTable manners instruction, i.e. elbows off the table. Casson/Grenfell (1982) has it – as well as, ‘No uncooked joints on the table, please.’

all mouth and trousersDescribing a type of man who is ‘all talk’ rather than sexually active or successful (compare the earlier ‘all prick and breeches’). Since the mid-20th century? Slanguage describes it now as ‘an insulting (non-sexual) catch phrase’. From BBC radio’s Round the Horne (15 May 1966): ‘There he goes, his kilt swinging in the breeze – all mouth music and no trousers.’

all my eye and Betty MartinMeaning, ‘nonsense’. OED2 finds a letter written in 1781 by one ‘S. Crispe’ stating: ‘Physic, to old, crazy Frames like ours, is all my eye and Betty Martin – (a sea phrase that Admiral Jemm frequently makes use of)’. Grose (1785) has ‘That’s my eye betty martin, an answer to any one that attempts to impose or humbug.’ The phrase is used in Punch (11 December 1841). Apperson has ‘Only your eye and Miss Elizabeth Martin’ in 1851. The shorter expressions ‘all my eye’ or ‘my eye’ predate this. As to how it originated, Brewer (1894) has the suggestion (from Joe Miller, 1739) that it was a British sailor’s garbled version of words heard in an Italian church: ‘O, mihi, beate Martine [Oh, grant me, blessed St Martin]’, but this sounds too ingenious and, besides, no prayer is known along those lines. Probably there was a Betty Martin of renown in the 18th century ( Partridge/Catch Phrases finds mention of an actress with the name whose favourite expression is supposed to have been ‘My eye!’) and her name was co-opted for popular use. Some people use a ‘Peggy Martin’ version.