A Dictionary of Catch Phrases

Eric Partridge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134929986
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Langues

New cover design - all titles in the Partridge collection now have the same style covers. Group shot of titles will be made available, together with an order form The first edition had life sales of over 19000 copies (hardback), the second edition sold out after selling 6000 copies (hardback) and the paperback has sold nearly 5000 copies in 2 editions

I

I acknowledge (or admit or confess) the corn is a c.p. deriving from acknowledge the corn, to plead guilty to a minor charge in order to avoid being charged for a much graver offence. ‘I know the story but not the dates. A man was accused of stealing four horses and the corn that fed them; he said, “I acknowledge the corn”. The original, the true, c.p. went out of use, I suppose, with the decline of the Wild West and [the abolition of] summary hanging for horse thieves’ (Shipley, 1977). Perhaps, therefore, c. 1835–1900. The earlier limit has been established by D.Am. and OED, esp. its second Supp.

Perhaps, therefore, c. 1835–1900. The earlier limit I ain’t coming. See: ain’t coming on that tab.
I always do my best for all my gentlemen. See

I ain’t coming. See: ain’t coming on that tab.
I always do my best for all my gentlemen. See can I do you now, sir?, third paragraph.
‘My shirt sticks to my back’—says Grose,

I am becalmed, the sail sticks to the mast.‘My shirt sticks to my back’—says Grose, 1785; he adds, ‘a piece of sea wit sported in hot weather’; a nautical c.p. of mid C18—late C19.

I am here to tell you! I tell you emphatically: a c.p. of affirmation: since c. 1945; by 1975, slightly ob. In his Pretty Polly Barlow, 1964, Noël Coward, at the story titled ‘Me and the Girls’, writes: ‘George Banks [the narrator] and his six Bombshells I am here to tell you began their merry career by opening a brand new night spot in Montevideo.’

I am (or I’m) not here. I don’t feel inclined to work; or, I wish to be left alone: tailors’: since c. 1870. (B&L.) Cf I want to be alone.

I am the greatest or, depending on the mood, the prettiest. ‘Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) admits that he acquired his “I am the greatest… I am the prettiest” routine from the wrestler, Gorgeous George, whom he saw in Las Vegas. “I noticed they all paid to get in—and I said, ‘This is a good idea!’” On occasion, Ali admitted to a group of school children: “I’m not really the greatest. I only say I’m the greatest because it sells tickets”’ (VIBS): adopted in UK as a c.p., or perhaps rather as allusive quot’n, c. 1970.

I am the vicar! is ‘used when someone mistakes one’s name or position. From the well-known children’s dialogue game which starts with a man pursuing a girl, and goes on to such exchanges as “My mother wouldn’t like it!”—“Your mother’s not going to get it!” [or “Nonsense, she loved it!” (P.B.)] and concludes: “I’ll tell the vicar!”—“I am the vicar!”’ (Derek Parker, in The Times, 9 Sep. 1977). This adult c.p. dates from very approx. the mid 1920s or the early 1930s. See also to the woods!

I apprehend you without a constable. Recorded in the Dialogue I of S, this smart c.p. of c. 1700–60, signifying ‘I take your meaning’, contains a pun on apprehend-to seize, hence to arrest-and apprehend-to understand.

I ask myself. A politician’s rhetorical cliché, become c.p. in the early 1980s when used for humorous effect: e.g. ‘Why is he such a Charlie, I ask myself, or the speaker may pluralise the phrase, ‘Where do we go from here, we ask ourselves’. Cf and contrast ask yourself!, q.v., and see also orft we jolly well go. (P.B.)
I ask you!—often prec. by well. It is an intensive of the statement to which it is appended. It is characteristically C20, but may have arisen in the late 1880s; there seems to be an allusion in F.Anstey’s Voces Populi, 1890—a collection of ‘sketches’ that had appeared in Punch, in the piece entitled ‘Sunday Afternoon in Hyde Park’, where a well-educated, well-dressed demagogue harangues the crowd: ‘But, I ask you—(he drops all playfulness and becomes sinister) if we—the down-trodden slaves of the aristocracy—were to go to them.’ The tone of voice is usually derisive. It implies ‘That’s ridiculous, don’t you think?’ In Letter to a Dead Girl, 1971, Selwyn Jepson provides an excellent example:

‘How can my finances be involved because I met Mrs Kinnon once in my life for a couple of minutes? I ask you!’
Harry begged not to be asked.

Cf this from Anne Morice’s Death of a Gay Dog, 1971:

‘My dear, you must be joking! When did you ever see anything so pretentious?… I ask you! Just look at the way he’s tarted it up!’

It occurs, as one would expect, in comedies of the 1920s and 1930s (and after). Miles Malleson, in The Fanatics, 1924, has an opening scene with parents talking about their son:

MRS FREEMAN: He came home.

MR FREEMAN: Eh? What excuse did he give?

MRS FREEMAN: I only heard him upstairs in his attic …playing the piano.

MR FREEMAN: Playing the piano!!! I ask you…a grown man…what is ’e? Twenty-six.

And in H.M.Harwood’s The Old Folks at Home, played 1933, pub’d 1934, the opening scene contains the lines:

LIZA: You needn’t have bothered with lizards, darling.
JANE: (warningly) Now, Liza!

LIZA: You needn’t have bothered JANE: (warningly) Now, Liza!
LIZA: Well, I ask you. He’s been

LIZA: Well, I ask you. He’s been simply living with these lizards for months, and all he’s found out is that males can behave like females. I could have shown him that in half an hour, anywhere in London.

Somewhere about 1930, the phrase was established in the US; Berrey includes it in a synonymy for ‘I don’t believe it!’.

The phrase seems to have derived from French and could well have arisen during the mid 1850s. In 1851 appeared Le Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires, which records: “Peut-on tolérer cela? Je vous le démande”; and the C20 Robert, noting the var. je vous le démande un peu, says that this familiar or highly coll. expression ‘marque l’étonnement, la réprobation’ and ‘=certainement pas’. (Paul Janssen, 1977.)
I asked for that! and got it! Since c. 1930. Cited in the Daily Mail book page on 15 May 1975.

I been there before. Yes, I know all about that—‘I’ve had some’: US. It prob. became a c.p. very soon after Mark Twain (1835–1910) reached the height of his literary powers in the mid 1880s, after Tom Sawyer, 1876, Life on the Mississippi, 1883, and Huckleberry Finn, 1884. The third of these three masterpieces ended with the unforgettable words, ‘I been there before’. Rarely has a famous, only in small part because easily remembered, quot’n achieved an enduring fame as a c.p. It must rank as one of the half-dozen most celebrated in the English language. It was so long ago I read Huckleberry Finn that I had forgotten reading its memorable conclusion. (It was R.C. who jogged my memory.) A demotic version of et ego in Arcadia vixi.

I believe yer, my boy. See: I believe you, my boy.
I believe you. See I believe you (or yer), my boy, and

I believe you. See I believe you (or yer), my boy, and oh, I believe you…, with which cf :
(in which the I is heavily emphasised) is a late

I believe you, (but) thousands wouldn’t(in which the I is heavily emphasised) is a late C19–20 c.p. indicative either of friendship victorious over incredulity or tactfully implying that the addressee is a liar. There is a var., as in R.H. Mottram, The Spanish Farm (a WW1 novel), 1927:

‘I did twelve months in the line as a platoon commander.
How long did you do that?’
Twelve months about!’
‘I believe you where thousands wouldn’t

In Billy Borker Yarns Again, 1967, Frank Hardy uses the predominant form. Perhaps an elab. of the next. In the US, thousands occ. becomes millions and the phrase often becomes there are thousands (occ. millions) who wouldn’t (A.B., 1978.) And French has ‘Je vous crois! Je pense ainsi, je pense comme vous; et aussi: c’est évident!’ (Paul Janssen cites Robert).

I believe you (or yer), my boy. Of this c.p., which fell a victim to WW2, The Referee, on 18 Oct. 1885, wrote, ‘Tis forty years since Buckstone’s drama, The Green Bushes, was first played at the Adelphi, and since Paul Bedford’s [that most popular actor’s] “I believe yer, my boy!” found its way on to tongues of the multitude.’ [P.B.: Albert Smith, in The Natural History of the Gent, 1847, amplifies: ‘Possibly the next [imitation] will be [of] Mr. Paul Bedford, when he rolls his r and says, “Come along, my r-r-r-r-rummy cove; come along comealong comealong! how are you? how d’ye do? here we are! I’m a looking at you like bricksy-wicksy wicksies—I believe you my boy-y-y-y-y!”’]
Clearly, however, the theatrical ref. was forgotten by myriads ignorant of the play: with the result that my boy soon came to be omitted.

Perhaps even more clearly, a reading of C19 plays reveals that the satirical I believe you had existed before John Buckstone’s play was prod, in 1845. George Dibdin Pitt’s Susan Hopley; or, the Vicissitudes of a Servant Girl: A Domestic Drama, performed 1841, III, ii, contains a passage between ladies’ maid Gimp and Dicky Dean the Cockney. Gimp says, ‘What a fascinating fellow! Does he dance too?’ and Dicky replies, ‘I believe you; cuts capers, and goes through his steps…. All the managers run after him.’ (‘Him’ is a donkey and Dicky is teasing the girl.)

A rather more serious ref. occurs in Dion Boucicault’s play, Mercy Dodd; or, Presumptive Evidence, performed in London, 1869, and in Philadelphia, 1874; it is cited as evidence of the early use of the simple I believe you!—not the literal but the ironic —thus, in I, i, where, in reply to Mercy Dodd’s ‘Do you mean that you have ever been confined in prison?’ Will Coveney says, ‘Portland Bill. Off and on all my life!’ and, at her further query, ‘What for?’, exclaims, ‘Trespass! As I grow’d up I found the world belonged to other people, and I’d no business anywhere in it. Prison! I believe you! What d’ye call living

outside in the streets of London?’ And an example from a better playwright: Henry Arthur Jones, in An Old Master, performed 1880, has this passage:

MATT[HEW]: … Is she kind and good-natured?

SIMP[KIN]: Well, between you and me, she’s a fire-eating old cat.

MATT: Is she though? What, proud and ill-tempered?

SIMP: I believe you.

Conclusion: Buckstone’s I believe yer, my boy—often misquoted as I believe you…—sprang from the generic irony, I believe you: and I believe you, although less used after WW2 than before it, was, as late as 1976, still far from moribund.

I bet! and I’ll bet! are elliptical for ‘I bet y...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
• INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION
• MODIFICATIONS OF THE ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE FIRST EDITION
• PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION
• ABBREVIATIONS
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z