black hole A term in astronomy for what is left when a star collapses gravitationally, thus leaving a field from which neither matter nor radiation can escape. The term was in use by 1968 and is sometimes used figuratively to describe the place to which a person has gone who has inexplicably just disappeared.
(the) Black Hole of Calcutta In 1756, 146 Europeans, including one woman, were condemned by the Nawab of Bengal to spend a night in the ‘Black-Hole’ prison of Fort William, Calcutta, after it had been captured. Only 23, including the woman, survived till morning. Subsequently the phrase has been applied to any place of confinement or any airless, dark place. From Francis Kilvert’s diary entry for 27 October 1874 (about a Church Missionary Society meeting): ‘The weather was close, warm and muggy, the room crowded to suffocation and frightfully hot, like the Black Hole of Calcutta, though the doors and all the windows were wide open’ (Kilvert’s Diary, Vols.1–3, ed. William Plomer, 1961).
black is beautiful The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jnr launched a poster campaign based on these words in 1967, but Stokely Carmichael had used the phrase earlier at a Memphis Civil Rights rally in 1966, and it had appeared in Liberation (NY) on 25 September 1965. The phrase may have had its origins in the Song of Solomon 1:5: ‘I am black, but comely.’
black list See ENEMIES LIST.
black mark, Bentley! Jimmy Edwards chiding Dick Bentley in the BBC radio show Take It From Here (1948–59). Frank Muir, the co-scriptwriter, commented (1979) that it arose from the use of ‘black mark!’ by James Robertson Justice in Peter Ustinov’s film of Vice Versa (UK 1947).
black power A slogan encompassing just about anything that people want it to mean, from simple pride in the black race to a threat of violence. Adam Clayton Powell Jnr, the Harlem congressman, said in a baccalaureate address at Howard University in May 1966: ‘To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power – what I call audacious power – the power to build black institutions of splendid achievement.’ On 6 June the same year, James Meredith, the first black person to integrate the University of Mississippi (in 1962), was shot and wounded during a civil rights march. Stokely Carmichael, heading the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, continued the march, during which his contingent first used the phrase as a shout. Carmichael used it in a speech at Greenwood, Mississippi, the same month. It was also adopted as a slogan by the Congress for Racial Equality. However, the notion was not new in the 1960s. Langston Hughes had written in Simple Takes a Wife (1953): ‘Negro blood is so powerful – because just one drop of black blood makes a coloured man – one drop – you are a Negro!…Black is powerful.’
black velvet Name of a drink made up of equal parts of champagne and stout (especially Guinness) and which derives from its appearance and taste. Also used to describe the sexual attributes of a black woman, according to Partridge/Slang. Known by 1930 in both senses.
blah-blah-blah ‘Blah’ or ‘blah-blah’, signifying ‘empty talk; airy mouthings’, are phrases that have been around (originally in the USA) since the end of the First World War. More recently the tripartite version (although known by 1924) has become marginally more frequent to denote words omitted or as another way of saying ‘and so on’. Ira and George Gershwin wrote a song called ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’ for a film called Delicious (1931) which contains such lines as ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah moon…Blah, blah, blah, blah croon’. Other examples are: ‘Burt [a journalist]: “You wouldn’t object to that angle for the piece? Here’s what he says: The Family bla-bla-bla, here’s how he lives…”’ – Peter Nichols, Chez Nous (1974); ‘Saul Kelner, 19…was the first person in line to see the president. He arrived at the White House…111/2 hours before the open house was to begin. “We didn’t sleep,” he said. “What we did, we circulated a list to ensure our places on line. ‘We the people, blah, blah, blah,’ and we all signed it”’ – The Washington Post (22 January 1989); ‘Bush referred to the diplomatic language [after a NATO summit conference in Bonn] in casual slang as “blah, blah”’ – The Washington Post (31 May 1989). The latter caused foreign journalists problems: ‘After all, how do you translate “blah, blah” into Italian?’
(the) bland leading the bland This coinage is anonymous and is quoted in Leslie Halliwell, The Filmgoer’s Book of Quotes (1973). It probably alludes to ‘Television is the bland leading the bland’, which occurs in Murray Schumach, The Face on the Cutting Room Floor (1964). The trope also occurs in J. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958): ‘These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification, the bland lead the bland.’ That same year (2 November 1958), The Sunday Times reported critic Kenneth Tynan’s view on his joining another paper: ‘They say the New Yorker is the bland leading the bland…I don’t know if I’m bland enough.’ Compare (THE) BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.
(to kiss the) Blarney Stone Meaning, to bestow on oneself the gift of the gab. The custom of kissing (the somewhat inaccessible) stone at Blarney Castle near Cork in Ireland is of relatively recent origin, having not been mentioned in print until the late 18th century. The word ‘blarney’ seems, however, to have entered the language a little while before. The origin traditionally given is that in 1602, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, one Cormac Macarthy (or Dermot McCarthy) was required to surrender the castle as proof of his loyalty. He prevaricated and came up with so many excuses that (it is said) the Queen herself exclaimed: ‘Odds bodikins, more Blarney talk’.
(a) blazing inferno An inevitable pairing, especially in journalistic use. Date of origin unknown. Singled out as a media cliché by Malcolm Bradbury in Tatler (March 1980) in the form: ‘As I stand here in the blazing inferno that was once called Saigon/ Beirut/ Belfast…’ ‘Hex’s favourite Stephen Jones hats remain the series of fabulous kitchen follies which included a frying-pan (complete with bacon and eggs) and a colander brimming with vegetables. Does Jones have a particular favourite? From a blazing inferno in his showroom he might try to save a gigantic layered tulle confection’ – The Scotsman (11 May 1994); ‘In June a 13-year-old schoolgirl died as she saved her two young sisters and brother after a massive gas explosion ripped through their home. The blast turned their home in Ramsgate, Kent, into a blazing inferno’ – Daily Mirror (29 December 1994).
bleats See EVERY TIME.
bless (his) little cotton socks A pleasant remark to make about a child, meaning, ‘Isn’t (he) sweet, such a dear little thing’. As ‘bless your little cotton socks’, it just means ‘thank you’. Partridge/Slang dates the expression from circa 1900 and labels it heavily ‘middle-class’.
(a) blessing in disguise Meaning ‘a misfortune that turns out to be beneficial’, this phrase has been in existence since the early 18th century. A perfect example is provided by the noted exchange between Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine. Attempting to console him after his defeat in the 1945 General Election, she said: ‘It may well be a blessing in disguise.’ To which he replied: ‘At the moment, it seems quite effectively disguised.’ Despite this comment, Churchill seems to have come round to something like his wife’s point of view. On 5 September 1945, he wrote to her from an Italian holiday: ‘This is the first time for very many years that I have been completely out of the world…Others having to face the hideous problems of the aftermath…It may all indeed be “a blessing in disguise”.’
blind See LIKE TAKING MONEY.
(the)
