(it would be) cheap at half the price Cheap, very reasonable. Not a totally sensible phrase, dating probably from the 19th century. Presumably what it means is that the purchase in question would still be cheap and a bargain if it was twice the price that was being asked. Some consider that the expression does make sense if ‘cheap’ is taken as meaning ‘of poor quality’, in other words, ‘it would still be a poor bargain if it was only half the price.’ Another interpretation is that the market trader means that his product is ‘cheap, at half the price it ought to be.’ The rest of us are not convinced by such arguments. In his Memoirs (1991), Kingsley Amis comments on phrases like this that perform semantic somersaults and manage to convey meanings quite the reverse of their literal ones. He cites from a soldier: ‘I’d rather sleep with her with no clothes on than you in your best suit.’
check and double check See I’SE REGUSTED.
checkmate See END GAME.
(the) Cheeky Chappie See HERE’S A FUNNY THING.
cheeky monkey! See RIGHT MONKEY!
cheerful Charlie See PROPER CHARLIE.
cheese See AS DIFFERENT; HELLISH DARK.
(to be) cheesed off (or browned off) ‘To be fed up’ – both terms known since 1941. ‘Cheese’ and ‘off-ness’ rather go together, so one might think of cheese as having an undesirable quality. Also, when cheese is subjected to heat, it goes brown, or gets ‘browned off’. On the other hand, the phrase could derive from ‘cheese off’, an expression like ‘fuck off’, designed to make a person go away. ‘Cheesed off’ may just be a state of rejection, like ‘pissed off’.
(a) chequered career A working life that is full of ups and downs. Book title: A Chequered Career, or Fifteen Years in Australia and New Zealand by H. W. Nesfield (1881). ‘My career with 20th Century Fox was somewhat chequered’ – The Listener (17 August 1967); ‘It is the latest blow to Mr Tapie’s much chequered career. This year he has been prosecuted by Customs over his yacht, been accused of match rigging and seen Olympique Marseille relegated to the second division’ – The Daily Telegraph (21 May 1994); ‘Myers has spent two episodes of his chequered career with Widnes, but he rarely enjoyed the freedom in their colours that he discovered playing against their sadly depleted current line-up yesterday’ – The Independent (12 September 1994).
cherchez la femme [look for the woman]! The key to a problem, the answer to some mystery, is the involvement of a woman. Attributed in this form to Joseph Fouché, the French revolutionary and politician (1763–1820). The first citation, however, is ‘cherchons la femme [let us look for the woman]’, from Alexandre Dumas (père) in his novel Les Mohicans de Paris (1854–5). ‘There’s a quarrel – a scandal – cherchez la femme – always a woman at the bottom of it’ – Bernard Shaw, The Philanderer (1898).
(a) cherished belief A belief that one holds dear. Date of origin unknown. ‘I brought him up to think for himself and to challenge things if I said something was true. I wanted him to say what he felt even if it was against my most cherished belief’ – The Daily Telegraph (12 July 1994); ‘The dream is for the duvet-cover or the pillow-case to spring to life – “I want Mark’s baby,” said one girl with shocking candour. The most cherished belief is that if the object of desire could just single out her face from the crowd, then she would be the one he would choose’ – The Daily Telegraph (29 August 1994).
che sera sera The proverbial saying ‘What must be, must be’ can be found as far back as Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ (circa 1390): ‘When a thyng is shapen, it shal be.’ But what of this foreign version, as sung, for example, by Doris Day in her 1956 hit song ‘Whatever Will Be Will Be’? She also sang it in the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much in the same year. Ten years later, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band had a hit with a song entitled ‘Que Sera Sera’. So is it che or que? There is no such phrase as che sera sera in modern Spanish or Italian, though che is an Italian word and será is a Spanish one. What we have here is an Old French or Old Italian spelling of what would be, in modern Italian, che sara, sara. This is the form in which the Duke of Bedford’s motto has always been written.
(to grin like a) Cheshire Cat To smile very broadly. The Cheshire Cat is most famous from its appearances in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) – where it has the ability to disappear, leaving only its grin behind – but the beast had been known since about 1770. Carroll, who was born in Cheshire, probably knew that Cheshire cheeses were at one time moulded in the shape of a grinning cat. ‘British power was slowly disappearing during the Churchillian Era, leaving, like the Cheshire Cat, only a wide smile behind’ – Andrew Roberts, Eminent Churchillians (1994).
chew See HE CAN’T.
(to) chew the cud Meaning, ‘to think deeply about something, especially the past’. This figurative expression (in use by 1382) refers to the ruminative look cows have when they chew their ‘cud’ – that is, bring back food from their first stomachs and chew it in their mouths again. ‘Cud’ comes from Old English cwidu, meaning ‘what is chewed’.
(to) chew the rag ‘To chew something over; to grouse or grumble over something at length, to discuss matters with a degree of thoroughness’ (compare ‘to chew the fat’). Known by 1885. As in the expression ‘to chew something over’, the word ‘chew’ here means simply ‘to say’ – that is, it is something carried on in the mouth like eating. The ‘rag’ part relates to an old meaning of that word, in the sense ‘to scold’ or ‘reprove severely’. ‘Rag’ was also once a slang word for ‘the tongue’ (from ‘red rag’, probably).
chicken à la King Cooked chicken breast served in a cream sauce with mushrooms and peppers. No royal origin – rather, it is said to have been named after E. Clark King, a hotel proprietor in New York, where the dish was introduced in the 1880s. Another story is that it was dreamed up at Delmonico’s restaurant by Foxhall Keene, son of the Wall Street operator and sportsman J. R. Keene, and served as chicken à la Keene. Yet another version is that the dish was created at Claridge’s in London for J. R. Keene himself after his horse won the Grand Prix.
(a) chicken and egg situation A problem where cause and effect are in dispute, from the ancient question ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ The construction was known by 1959. ‘The chicken-and-egg attitude towards the home background of addicts’ – The Guardian (24 February 1967); ‘She sees no problem in finding enough readers; she sees the problem as a general lack of left-wing publishing in this country. “If you want a good read, you don’t think of buying a left magazine,” she says. “It is a chicken-and-egg situation. New Statesman is the only other independent around and they have welcomed Red Pepper. They think we will help to open up the market’ – The Guardian (4 May 1994); ‘The other members objected to this formula because, as a rule, UN member states will not volunteer troops unless there is a definite Security Council mandate. “It was a chicken and egg situation,” said one diplomat’ – The Independent (18 May 1994).
(the) chief cook and bottle-washer (sometimes head cook…) ‘A person put in charge of running something; a factotum’ (known by 1887). What may be an early form of the phrase occurs in Schikaneder’s libretto for
