Allen's Dictionary of English Phrases

1687 Pages·2008·6.33 MB·English

by  R. E. Allen

PENGUIN REFERENCE
Allen’s Dictionary of English Phrases
Robert Allen is an experienced lexicographer and writer on a wide range of
language topics. He edited the Pocket Oxford edition of Fowler’s Modern
English Usage, contributed to the Oxford Companion to the English Language
and the Oxford History of English Lexicography, and is editor-in-chief of the
Penguin English Dictionary. He has also written two volumes in the Penguin
Writers’ Guides series, How to Write Better English and Common Errors and
Problems in English. Robert Allen lives in Edinburgh.
Allen’s Dictionary of
ENGLISH
PHRASES
Robert Allen
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published 2006
Published in paperback with updates 2008
1
Copyright © Robert Allen, 2006, 2008
All rights reserved
The author and publishers would like to thank Anne Seaton
for her contribution to the research work for this project.
Quotations from the Oxford English Dictionary are reproduced
by kind permission of Oxford University Press.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
978-0-14-191768-9
For Alison
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Layout of entries
Allen’s Dictionary of English Phrases
Preface
This book is intended to fill a major gap in the record of the English language. It
offers, for the first time on this scale, a scholarly and systematic treatment of
thousands of idiomatic phrases that play a crucial role in modern spoken and
written English, and seeks to provide a comprehensive picture of their use and
history. If words are the building blocks of language, then phrases are the walls
and windows, providing a shape and structure and allowing the daylight of
metaphor and imagery into the darkened rooms of everyday language.
The treatment of phrases in the major historical dictionaries is far less rigorous
than the coverage of individual words; many are given with a sketchy or
incomplete record or are merged into the ordinary senses of words, and some are
not included at all. There are many books of idioms, cliches, and catchphrases,
all invariably entertaining but falling well short of a complete narrative and
making little attempt to go beyond conventional anecdote to trace the history and
usage of phrases in systematic ways, which is a key feature of this book. Nor,
generally, do they provide evidence in the form of quotations in support of their
history and development, except opportunistically and spasmodically. There
have been more scholarly books, such as the Oxford Dictionary of English
Proverbs (third edition, 1970), which lists proverbial language in a broader sense
than is generally understood by the term proverb and gives copious citations but
virtually no editorial comment. Then, most famously of all, there is Brewer’s
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (originally by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, first
published in 1870 and in many editions since) but despite its great appeal this is
more about ‘fable’ than ‘phrase’, makes only occasional attempts to explain the
evolution and history of phrases, and rarely dates them. In this book, I have
attempted to supply as full a record as possible at all levels: historical,
philological, and anecdotal.
Compiling this book has taken several years and involved considerable
amounts of original investigation. Assembling the list of phrases to be treated
was the simplest part of the task, as such lists exist in other places and can easily
be collated and then edited into a coherent form. More important, as with all
historical lexicography, is the reading of primary sources (chiefly fiction, drama,
and poetry, but also biography and other works of non-fiction) to establish what
really exists in the language and at what dates. This evidence of actual usage is
the life-blood of any treatment of the language. Many phrases can be traced back
to older forms of English, even to Anglo-Saxon, and some (such as busy as a bee
and be at one’s wits’end) are found in Chaucer and other writers of the period
after the Norman Conquest known as Middle English. References to
Shakespeare in this book run into several hundred, as do those to the Authorized
Version of the Bible (1611). The rise of the novel in the late 18th and 19th
centuries provided a vehicle for the rapid spread of very many phrases that are
now fully absorbed into everyday English. Notable among these are the set
similes such as good as gold, which occurs frequently in the writing of Dickens,
Wilkie Collins, Charlotte Yonge, and others. The prolific use of idioms by
Dickens (take one’s secret to the grave, like grim death, lose one’s grip, eat one’s
hat, take it into one’s head) was perhaps less of a surprise than the rich yield
from Jane Austen (throw cold water on, be dying to, dog tired, done for, with
one’s eyes open, act the fool) and, at an earlier date still, from Henry Fielding
(kick one’s heels, draw in one’s horns, a fine kettle of fish, a likely story, leave
somebody in the lurch).
During the compiling of this book, I made some interesting discoveries. Most
of these concerned the origins of phrases, which (as with words of obscure origin
such as OK and posh) were quite evidently devised long after the event and have
been repeated in print with a persistence that is in inverse proportion to their
likelihood. They were usually disproved by investigation or at least weakened by
a lack of historical evidence: that the brass monkeys invoked in cold weather
related to the storage of cannon balls on ships (which shrank and became
dislodged in cold weather), that the cats and dogs of heavy rain were a
corruption of a phrase in ancient Greek (kata doxan meaning ‘contrary to
belief’), or that setting the Thames on fire had something to do with a tool called
a temse (which overheated with excessive use). In many cases, such as the last,
these stories were invented in the face of straightforward explanations that made
perfect sense in themselves (and historical evidence for setting the Thames on
fire establishes an explicit link with the river at an early stage of its use). In the
case of the brass monkeys, an early use of the phrase by Herman Melville in
1847 (‘hot enough to melt the nose off a brass monkey’) clearly involves a
meaning directly opposite to the usual one and seriously undermines the
traditional theory about its origin. As far as I am aware, this evidence has not
been adduced before.
Many phrases are a great deal older then one might expect, and others again
are much more recent. Those for which I was expecting to find earlier evidence
than in fact emerged include Achilles’ heel (19th cent.), as honest as the day is
long (20th cent.), a knight in shining armour (20th cent.), and the luck of the
draw (20th cent.). There were also some surprises in the opposite direction: chop
and change has a modern ring but goes back to Tyndale’s translation of the New
Testament in the early 16th century; cool as a cucumber is found in early 17th
century drama; like mad occurs in its modern sense as early as the work of
Aphra Behn later in the same century; and son of a bitch, for all its modern
American resonance, is the way Lord Byron refers to Robert Southey in a letter
written in 1818. A most interesting byway of my investigation into usage of the
late 16th century was the setting of Shakespeare in the context of his time. Some
phrases closely associated with him or regarded as his inventions are also found
in the work of his contemporaries and in some cases precede his use; a notable
example is nip in the bud, which we owe to John Fletcher and Thomas Dekker
and not to Shakespeare (who uses it in the form blasted in the bud). Other
phrases (such as cock-and-bull story and the straight/strait and narrow) emerge
gradually from the mists of usage.
I was also struck by the abundance of recent coinages, of phrases with a
modern resonance that form a linguistic commentary on our own times: smoking
gun, be economical with the truth, her indoors, be unfit to run a whelk stall,
joined-up government, ladies who lunch, a level playing field, get a life, over the
limit, the bottom line, get the message, mission creep, the full monty, name and
shame, pass one’s sell-by date.
In the Introduction I have explained the principles that underlie the choice of
material included. Despite these attempts to establish boundaries to keep the
book within manageable proportions, the reader will find a fair number of entries
that defy the selection principles as I have outlined them. I have usually included
them because I could not resist it. Serendipity and personal idiosyncrasy help to
make a book like this – and language in general – a lot more interesting and a lot
more fun.
I should like to thank all those who helped me to write this book, and to
improve earlier versions of the text: in particular Anne Seaton, who contributed
hugely to the task of establishing chronology and tracking down early uses of
phrases, and Rosalind Fergusson, who copy-edited the book and brought greater
order to a mass of detailed information. Any remaining inconsistencies or errors
are entirely my fault. I am also very grateful for the support and encouragement
of the publishers, especially Nigel Wilcockson and Sophie Lazar. Everyone
involved in the project became aware of how much the book represents work in
progress and can never be the last word. I am sure there are readers who will
have suggestions and improvements to offer, and theseespecially when backed
up by evidence – will always be welcome. Please write to the publisher at the
address on the title verso.
Robert Allen
Edinburgh 2006
For the paperback reprint I have taken the opportunity to make a few routine
corrections to the text, to enter an occasional antedating, and to add a few
phrases that came into prominence a little too late for the original edition,
including ahead of the curve and the elephant in the room.
Edinburgh 2008