The promotion of peace through parity of strength in rival groups – an expression used by the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, in the House of Commons (13 February 1741). Safire (1978) states that the phrase had earlier been used in international diplomacy by 1700. Initially, the phrase appears to have been ‘the balance of power in Europe’. In 1715, Alexander Pope wrote a poem with the title ‘The Balance of Europe’: ‘Now Europe’s balanc’d, neither side prevails; / For nothing’s left in either of the scales.’
bald See FIGHT BETWEEN.
(as) bald as a badger/bandicoot/coot Completely bald. ‘Bald as a coot’ has been known since 1430. The aquatic coot, known as the bald coot, has the appearance of being bald. The Australian marsupial, the bandicoot, is not bald but is presumably evoked purely for the alliteration and because the basic ‘coot’ expression is being alluded to. As for badger, the full expression is ‘bald as a badger’s bum’. There was once a belief that bristles for shaving brushes were plucked from this area. Christy Brown, Down All the Days (1970), has, rather, ‘bald as a baby’s bum’.
bald-headed See GO AT SOMETHING.
(Mr) Balfour’s poodle A reference to the House of Lords. David Lloyd George spoke in the House of Commons on 26 June 1907 in the controversy over the power of the upper house. He questioned the Lords’ role as a ‘watchdog’ of the constitution and suggested that A. J. Balfour, the Conservative leader, was using the party’s majority in the upper chamber to block legislation by the Liberal government (in which Lloyd George was President of the Board of Trade). He said: ‘[The House of Lords] is the leal and trusty mastiff which is to watch over our interests, but which runs away at the first snarl of the trade unions. A mastiff? It is the Right Honourable Gentleman’s poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to.’ Hence, all subsequent ‘—’s poodle’ jibes usually applied to one politician’s (or government’s) subservience to another. ‘Ninety per cent of respondents feared military action against Baghdad would result in more September 11-style attacks on the West, while 54 per cent thought it fair to describe Mr Blair as “Bush’s poodle”’ – The Age (Australia) (13 August 2002).
(the) ball of clay I.e. ‘planet earth, the world’. Known by 1635. Also in the song ‘Look for Small Pleasures’ (‘…upon this ball of clay’) written by Michaels/Sandrich for the musical Ben Franklin in Paris (Broadway 1964). Compare WHOLE BALL OF WAX.
balloon See GO DOWN.
(the) balloon’s gone up Current by 1924 and meaning ‘the action or excitement has commenced’, particularly in military activities. The expression derives from the sending up of barrage balloons (introduced during the First World War) to protect targets from air raids. The fact that these balloons – or manned observation balloons – had ‘gone up’ would signal that some form of action was imminent. C. H. Rolph in London Particulars (1980) suggests that the phrase was in use earlier, by 1903–4.
ballroom See IS SHE A.
balls See ALL; COLD ENOUGH TO.
balm in Gilead See IS THERE NO.
(the) banality of evil ‘The fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil’ was how the German-born philosopher Hannah Arendt summed up the lessons to be learned from the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official who was executed in Israel as a war criminal in 1962. Her book Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) was subtitled ‘A Report on the Banality of Evil’ and caused controversy because it seemed to suggest that Eichmann was not personally responsible for his deeds during the Holocaust.
band See AID; AND THE.
(a) band of brothers Band of Brothers was the title of a Steven Spielberg TV film series (US 2001) based on a non-fiction book (1992) by Stephen E. Ambrose that told the history of a single company in the 101st US Airborne Division 1942–5. It comes from Shakespeare, Henry V, IV.iii.60 (1599), where the King says before the Battle of Agincourt: ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…/ And gentlemen in England now a-bed / Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here.’
bang See ALL BALLS.
bang, bang, you’re dead! A child’s apt summary of the manner of TV Westerns, probably dating from the 1950s. Compare the slightly later KISS-KISS, BANG-BANG.
bang goes sixpence! A lightly joking remark about one’s own or another person’s unwillingness to spend money. The origins of this lie in the caption to a Punch cartoon (5 December 1868). A Scotsman who has just been on a visit to London says: ‘Mun, a had na’ been the-rre abune two hours when – bang – went saxpence!’ Benham (1948) has it that the story was communicated to the cartoonist Charles Keene by Birket Foster who had it from Sir John Gilbert. The saying was repopularized by Sir Harry Lauder, the professional stage Scotsman (1870–1950).
(she) bangs like a shithouse door She copulates regularly and noisily. Australian, 1930s. A variation is (she) bangs like a shithouse rat.
bang to rights As in ‘You’ve got me bang to rights!’ said by a criminal to an arresting policeman, this is an alternative to ‘It’s a fair cop [You are quite right to have caught me, constable]!’ There is also an element of ‘You’ve caught me red-handed, in an indefensible position’. Partridge/Slang dates this from the 1930s, but OED2 finds a US example in 1904. Possibly derived from 19th-century usage – from the idea of being ‘bang-on right’ in absolute certainty. Compare the somewhat rare Americanism ‘bang’ for a criminal charge or arrest, as in ‘it’s a bum bang’, that may have been coined with reference to the banging of a cell door.
bank See CRY ALL THE WAY TO.
ban the bomb One of the simplest and best-known alliterative slogans, current in the US from 1953 and marginally afterwards in the UK. The (British) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – whose semi-official slogan it became – was not publicly launched until February 1958. The phrase was in use by 1960. (Richard Crossman referred to ‘Scrap the Bomb’ in a 1957 press article.)
Banzai! From a hundred war films and cheap comics we are familiar with the cry used by Japanese forces in the Second World War, meaning ‘[May you live] ten thousand years!’ During the war – and after it – this traditional cry came to mean ‘Ten thousand years to the Emperor’ or to ‘Japan’. M. R. Lewis observed (1986): ‘The root of the problem is that a language written in the Chinese ideographic characters is often difficult to translate sensibly into a West European language, because it is often not apparent when the literal meaning is intended and when the figurative. “Banzai” literally means no more than “ten thousand years”, but what it more usually means is “for a long time”. So, a pen in Japanese is, when literally translated, a “ten thousand year writing brush”, which is gibberish in any language! What it actually means is “a long-lasting writing instrument”…For the suicide pilots, the ritual shout of “Banzai!” swept up many layers of meaning, of which the most immediate was undoubtedly “Tenno heika banzai” – “Long live the Emperor”, a phrase which goes back into the mists of Japanese history, despite its appropriation by the nationalist movements of the 1930s. The phrase is still in use on such occasions as the Emperor’s birthday, as I can testify from recent experience. When he stepped out on to the balcony and the shouts rose around me, I began to feel that I was in the wrong movie! As for the oddity of the phrase –
