Good for You, Too? (1983) that ‘Close your eyes and think of England’ was advice given to Queen Victoria ‘on her wedding night’. Sometimes the phrase occurs in the form lie back and think of England, but this probably comes from confusion with SHE SHOULD LIE BACK AND ENJOY IT. In 1977, a long-running play by John Chapman and Anthony Marriott opened in London with the title Shut Your Eyes and Think of England.
cloth-eared Phrase used to describe someone who is somewhat deaf and thus, in a transferred sense, has no taste in matters musical. Known by 1912. It is not completely obvious why ‘cloth’ is used in this phrase – maybe in contrast with a richer material.
cloud See GET OFF MY.
(to live in) cloud-cuckoo land Meaning ‘to have impractical ideas’, the expression comes from the name Nephelococcygia, suggested for the capital city of the birds (in the air) in The Birds by Aristophanes. Listed as a current cliché in The Times (28 May 1984). ‘The decision to standardize the names of authors may be a big stride for the book world. But it is only a small step towards that cloud-cuckoo-land where everybody speaks and writes English according to the same rules’ – The Times (30 May 1994); ‘Fund managers have questioned RJB’s assessment of the market after 1998 when contracts with power generators, coal’s biggest customer, expire. One banker advising an under-bidder said the RJB predictions “were in cloud-cuckoo-land”’ – The Sunday Times (27 November 1994); ‘Mr Watkinson said that the RMT’s claim for 6 per cent [pay rise] meant that the [union’s] leadership was “living in cloud cuckoo land”’ – The Independent (27 May 1995).
(on) cloud nine (or cloud seven) Meaning, ‘in a euphoric state’. Both forms have existed since the 1950s. The derivation appears to be from terminology used by the US Weather Bureau. Cloud nine is the cumulonimbus, which may reach 30–40,000 feet. Morris notes, ‘If one is upon cloud nine, one is high indeed,’ and also records the reason for cloud nine being more memorable than cloud seven: ‘The popularity…may be credited to the Johnny Dollar radio show of the 1950s. There was one recurring episode…Every time the hero was knocked unconscious – which was often – he was transported to cloud nine. There Johnny could start talking again.’ ‘Nurse John McGuinness Shares Double Rollover Lottery Jackpot…“It still hasn’t sunk in and I’ve been on cloud nine since the draw”’ – Daily Mirror (29 January 1996); ‘Scotland’s rugby centre Scott Hastings is on cloud nine after becoming a father for the second time. The newest arrival to the Hastings clan, Kerry Anne, was not expected until later in the week but she was born on Sunday night, weighing in at 7lb 2oz’ – The Herald (Glasgow) (7 February 1996).
(a) cloud no bigger than a man’s hand When something is described as such, it is not yet very threatening – as though a man could obliterate a cloud in the sky by holding up a hand in front of his face. The phrase is biblical: ‘Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand’ (1 Kings 18:44). The Reverend Francis Kilvert, on 9 August 1871, has: ‘Not a cloud was in the sky as big as a man’s hand.’ In a letter to Winston Churchill on 14 December 1952, Bob Boothby MP wrote of a dinner at Chartwell: ‘It took me back to the old carefree days when I was your Parliamentary Private Secretary, and there seemed to be no cloud on the horizon; and on to the fateful days when the cloud was no bigger than a man’s hand, and there was still time to save the sum of things.’
club See IN THE.
clumsy clot! Catchphrase from the BBC radio show Take It From Here (1948–59). A hangover from wartime slang.
clunk, click, every trip Accompanied by the sound of a car door closing and of a seat belt being fastened, this was used as a slogan in British road safety ads featuring Jimmy Savile from 1971. In 1979, someone wrote the slogan on a museum cabinet containing a chastity belt.
c’mere, big boy! Stock phrase of Florence Halop as Hotbreath Houlihan, a sexpot in the American radio show The Camel Caravan (1943–7).
coach See DRIVE A COACH.
coat See GET YOUR COAT.
Coca-Cola PHRASES See PAUSE THAT REFRESHES.
cock See BIG CONK.
(a) cock-and-bull story A long, rambling, unbelievable tale, as used notably in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760–7). The last words of the novel are: ‘“L—d!” said my mother, “what is all this story about?” – “A cock and a bull,” said Yorick, “And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard”.’ Suggested origins are that the phrase comes from: old fables in general that have animals talking, going right back to Aesop – confirmed perhaps by the equivalent French phrase ‘coq à l’âne’ [literally ‘cock to donkey’]; Samuel Fisher’s 1660 story about a cock and a bull being transformed into a single animal – which people may have thought pretty improbable; somehow from the Cock and the Bull public houses, which are but a few doors apart in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire. The OED2’s earliest citation in this precise form is from the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States (1795): ‘a long cock-and-bull story about the Columbianum’ (a proposed national college). Motteux’s 1700 translation of Cervantes, Don Quixote (Pt 1, Bk 3, Chap. 17), has: ‘don’t trouble me with your foolish stories of a cock and a bull’. Apperson trumps all with a 1608 citation – from John Day’s play, Law Trickes or who would have thought it, IV.ii: ‘What a tale of a cock and a bull he tolde my father.’
(to) cock a snook A snook is the derisive gesture made with thumb and hand held out from the nose (though the phrase is also used figuratively for a cheeky gesture). ‘To take a sight’ is an alternative phrase. Both were known by the mid-19th century; indeed, OED2 has ‘cock snooks’ in 1791. The game of snooker derives its name not from this but rather from the military nickname for a raw recruit.
cocked hat See KNOCK SOMETHING.
Cocker See ACCORDING TO.
(a) cock-up on the catering front Catchphrase from the BBC TV series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–9) written by David Nobbs. Reggie’s brother-in-law, Jimmy Anderson (played by Geoffrey Palmer) had a military background and, in civilian life, used military turns of phrase to explain things away. For example, ‘No food. Bit of a cock-up on the catering front…’ Really something of a format phrase.
(the) cocks may crow but it’s the hen that lays the egg Informal proverb. Uttered by Margaret Thatcher, when British Prime Minister, at a private dinner party in 1987 (according to Robert Skidelsky in The Sunday Times, Books (9 April 1989). A London News Radio phone-in (December 1994) had this version: ‘The cock does all the crowing but the hen lays all the eggs.’ ‘My grandmother’s all-embracing put down of males: “He’s a clever old cock, but he can’t lay eggs”’ – Margaret Rawles (2000). Apperson finds the obvious original, ‘The cock crows but the hen goes’, in use by 1659.
cocoa See GRATEFUL.
coconut See GIVE THE MAN.
coffin See DRIVE A NAIL.
coffin nails Derogatory name for cigarettes, from a 1957 British newsreel, but Partridge/Slang suggests an origin circa 1885 and in catchphrase form – ‘Another nail in your coffin!’ (said to someone lighting up).
