by 1956) in which eminent university dons had to identify ancient artefacts just by looking at them. The trio of words was also evoked in the long-running radio series Twenty Questions. This originated on the Mutual Radio Network in the US in 1946, having been created by Fred Van De Venter and family – who transferred with the show to NBC TV, from 1949 to 1955. Twenty Questions ran on BBC radio from 1947 to 1976. Panellists simply had to guess the identity of a ‘mystery object’ by asking up to twenty questions. A fourth category – ‘abstract’ – was added later. In 1973–4, a version of this game made for BBC World Service was actually called Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. The key to the matter is that the original American show was admittedly based on the old parlour game of ‘Animal, Vegetable [and/or] Mineral’. This seems to have been known on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century. In Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson, we find (1839–41): ‘Dickens was brilliant in routing everybody at “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral”, although he himself failed to guess a vegetable object mentioned in “mythological history” and belonging to a queen, and was chagrined to have it identified as the tarts made by the Queen of Hearts.’ In the same book, in a chapter on the period 1858–65, we also read: ‘[Dickens] was swift and intuitive in “Twenty Questions”…On one occasion, he failed to guess “The powder in the Gunpowder Plot”, although he succeeded in reaching Guy Fawkes.’ Presumably, then, the game was known by both names, though Dickens also refers to a version of it as ‘Yes and No’ in A Christmas Carol (1843). ‘Twenty Questions’ is referred to as such in a letter from Hannah Moore as early as 1786. Yet another name for this sort of game (by 1883) appears to have been ‘Clumps’ or ‘Clubs’.
animals See ALL ANIMALS.
(the) Animated Meringue Nickname of (Dame) Barbara Cartland (1902–2000), British romantic novelist and health food champion, who employed a chalky style of make-up in addition to driving around in a pink and white Rolls-Royce. She was thus dubbed by Arthur Marshall who said that far from taking offence, Miss Cartland sent him a telegram of thanks. Compare: ‘At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name of a certain statesman, who may be decently covered under the disguise of X. “X.,” said Arlington Stringham, “has the soul of a meringue”’ – Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis, ‘The Jesting of Arlington Stringham’ (1911).
annus mirabilis Phrase for a remarkable or auspicious year, in modern (as opposed to classical) Latin. Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis: the year of wonders was published in 1666, but the idea was known before this, viz. Mirabilis annus secundus; or, the Second year of prodigies: Being a true and impartial collection of many strange signes and apparitions, which have this last year been seen in the heavens, and in the earth, and in the waters (1662). In the Netherlands, 1566 used to be known (but not until the mid-19th century) as wonderjaar, because of its crucial role in the start of the Dutch revolt. The opposite term – annus horribilis – was popularized by Queen Elizabeth II in a speech in the City of London (24 November 1992) to mark her fortieth year on the British throne: ‘1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.’ She was reflecting her current mood: she had a cold, part of Windsor Castle had been burned down four days previously and the marriages of three of her children had collapsed or were collapsing. She states that she had the phrase from a correspondent. It seems more likely that it was inserted by the Queen’s private secretary and speechwriter, Sir Robert Fellowes, having been written in a Christmas card sent to Her Majesty by her former Principal Private Secretary, Sir Edward Ford.
another See HERE’S A FUNNY.
another country Julian Mitchell’s play Another Country (1981; film UK 1984) shows how the seeds of defection to Soviet Russia were sown in a group of boys at an English public school. The title comes not, as might be thought, from the celebrated line in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (circa 1592): ‘Fornication: but that was in another country; / And besides the wench is dead.’ Rather, as the playwright has confirmed, it is taken from the second verse of Sir Cecil Spring Rice’s patriotic ‘Last Poem’ (1918), which begins ‘I vow to thee, my country’ and continues ‘And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago – / Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know.’ In the original context, the ‘other country’ is Heaven, rather than the Soviet Union, of course. Another Country had earlier been used as the title of a novel (1962) by James Baldwin.
another day – another dollar! What one says to oneself at the conclusion of toil. Obviously of American origin but now as well known in the UK where there does not appear to be an equivalent expression using ‘pound’ instead of ‘dollar’. Partridge/Catch Phrases dates the phrase from the 1940s in the UK and from circa 1910 in the US.
another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm This boozer’s jocular justification for another snort is rather more than a catchphrase. Allusion is made to it in Edith Sitwell’s bizarre lyrics for ‘Scotch Rhapsody’ in Façade (1922): ‘There is a hotel at Ostend / Cold as the wind, without an end, / Haunted by ghostly poor relations…/ And “Another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm,” / Pierces through the sabbatical calm.’ The actual origin is in a song with the phrase as title, written by Clifford Grey to music by Nat D. Ayer and sung by George Robey in the show The Bing Boys Are Here (1916). It includes a reference to the well-known fact that Prime Minister Asquith was at times the worse for wear when on the Treasury Bench: ‘Mr Asquith says in a manner sweet and calm: / And another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm.’
(that’s) another meal the Germans won’t have Dismissive catchphrase on finishing a meal. ‘When my (French) wife arrived in this country some thirty years ago, she surprised me by remarking, after a particularly good meal, “Voilà, un autre repas que les Allemands n’auront pas.” This saying apparently derived from her mother, or indeed her grandmother, who suffered in the Occupation. To my astonishment, on a trip to Avignon ten years ago, after an exceptional banquet, a young French lad aged about 25, turned to my wife and made the same remark. It would seem that this has now become a French proverb’ – Raymond Harris (1995). Confirmation comes from The Sunday Times (23 March 1997): ‘Older Frenchmen admitted they sometimes still use the toast, when raising their glasses, of “This is one the Boches won’t get”.’ And from even further back: ‘On his first visit to Germany nearly forty years later, [Matisse] told one of his students that…he never forgot his mother repeating like a grace at meals: “Here’s another one the Germans won’t lay their hands on”. The phrase would become a familiar refrain throughout the region during the incursions of the next seventy-five years and more’ – Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, Vol. 1 (1998), referring to the Prussians who passed through north-eastern France in the 1871 Franco-Prussian war.
another opening, another show! Show business exclamation – perhaps uttered ironically, like ON WITH THE MOTLEY! ‘Another Op’nin, Another Show’ is the title of a song sung by the members of a theatrical troupe in Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate (1948).
another page turned in the book of life Conversational reflection on someone’s death. One of the numerous clichés of bereavement, designed to keep the awfulness of death at bay by means of comfortingly trite remarks. A cliché by about 1960. However, the notion of life as a book whose pages turn can be invoked on other occasions as well. On 1 September 1872, the Reverend Francis Kilvert wrote in his diary: ‘Left Clyro for ever. A chapter of life closed and a leaf in the Book of Life turned over.’ In its original biblical sense, the said book is a record of those who will inherit eternal life (as in Philippians 4:3 and Revelation 20:12).
another part of the wood Title of the first volume of (Lord) Kenneth Clark’s autobiography (1974) and
