(from 1955) which had a noisy studio audience of youngsters who had only to hear the word ‘Crackerjack’ for them to scream back ‘CRACKERJACK!’ It was probably not a word known to them before.
crafty as a wagon-load of monkeys Very cunning. Mid-20th century. Compare the (apparently unconnected) cry to a group of people waiting to depart in a bus or coach: ‘a cartload of monkeys and the wheel won’t turn’ – that Partridge/Catch Phrases suggests was current by 1890.
crazy like a fox I.e. ‘apparently crazy but with far more method than madness’ – Partridge/Catch Phrases. Craziness is hardly a quality one associates with foxes, so the expression was perhaps merely formed in parallel with the older ‘cunning as a fox’. The similar ‘crazy as a fox’, also of US origin, was known by the mid-1930s. Foxes always seem to get into expressions like these. In a 1980 radio interview, the actress Judy Carne was asked about Goldie Hawn, her one-time colleague on Laugh-In. Carne said: ‘She’s not a dizzy blonde. She’s about as dumb as a fox. She’s incredibly bright.’ Crazy Like a Fox was the title of a US TV series about a ‘sloppy old private eye’ and his ‘smart lawyer son’ (from 1984). Before that, it was used as the title of a book by S. J. Perelman (1945).
crazy, man, crazy See GO, MAN. GO.
(a) creaking gate hangs longest Of a (complaining) person in poor health who outlives an apparently healthier person. Apperson finds ‘a creaking gate (or door) hangs long’ by 1776. Other variants are: ‘A creaking cart goes long on the wheels’ (quoted as a common proverb in 1900) and ‘creaking carts go a long way.’
(the) cream of the crop The very best of anything. Date of origin unknown. And which crop produces cream, one wonders? ‘As a matter of opinion I think he’s the tops / My opinion is he’s the cream of the crop’ – song ‘My Guy’ by Smokey Robinson (1964); ‘Recipe: Cream of the crop – Edward Hardy on a sauce that’s so good for the sole’ – headline in The Guardian (16 July 1994); ‘Reporting on the Lincoln Center controversy, Greg Thomas in The Guardian said that to call the jazz programme racist was “patently ridiculous”. He also made the point that to discuss jazz musicians in this way should be unnecessary, since in jazz history, “like post-Fifties basketball, the cream of the crop have always risen”’ – The Times (16 July 1994); ‘Football: Cream Of The Crop: John Spencer Shows Off New Hairstyle’ – headline in The People (13 November 1994).
creative accountancy (or accounting) A term for ingenious manipulation of accounts that may or may not actually be illegal. An early example of the phrase occurs in the film The Producers (US 1968): ‘It’s simply a matter of creative accounting. Let’s assume for a moment that you are a dishonest man…It’s very easy. You simply raise more money than you need.’ The film’s subject is such accountancy applied to the world of the theatrical angel.
(a/the) credibility gap The difference between what is claimed as fact and what is actually fact. It dates from the time in the Vietnam war when, despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson administration, an escalation of US participation was taking place. ‘Dilemma in “Credibility Gap”’ was the headline over a report on the matter in The Washington Post (13 May 1965). (la) crème de la crème The elite; the very pick of any group in society. OED2 claims that this expression was first used of the Austrians by the actress and author Fanny Kemble in a letter of 22 January 1848. Another claim is that it was introduced by Fanny Trollope in her travel book Vienna and the Austrians (1838). ‘I am putting old heads on your young shoulders…and all my pupils are the crème de la crème’ – Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Chap. 1 (1961).
(a) crew cut A brush-like short haircut popular with the US military but apparently first adopted by oarsmen at Harvard and Yale Universities (hence the ‘crew’) and athletes who no doubt appreciated its aerodynamic qualities. Known since 1942.
Crichton See ADMIRABLE.
crime doesn’t pay A slogan used variously by the FBI and by the cartoon character Dick Tracy. Known by 1927. Crime Does Not Pay was the title of a series of two-reel cinema shorts made by MGM between 1935 and 1947. ‘You been reading a lot of stuff about “Crime don’t pay”. Don’t be a sucker. That’s for yaps and small-timers on shoestrings. Not for people like us’ – gangster Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) in Angels With Dirty Faces (US 1938). ‘Crime never pays, not even life insurance benefits’ – Zelda Popkin, No Crime For a Lady (1942). ‘Crime doesn’t pay’ – Punch (22 August 1945).
crimes and misdemeanors A phrase from the Constitution of the United States, Article II, Sect. 4 (1787): ‘The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ Hence, Crimes and Misdemeanors, the title of a Woody Allen film (US 1989).
criminal folly An inevitable pairing of words meaning ‘folly that has deeply serious implications or is sufficient to be likened to a criminal act’. Known in the 19th century. Listed in The Independent (24 December 1994) as a cliché of newspaper editorials. ‘Miners’ lamps…so convenient…that it would really seem to be nothing short of criminal folly to run the slightest risk with flame lamps’ – Daily News (10 May 1888); ‘He condemned the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a “criminal folly” and used the same words yesterday to describe the Israeli bombardment of the villages of southern Lebanon last July’ – The Independent (7 September 1993); ‘He also warned Unionists not to entertain ideas of an independent Ulster. “In Ulster, the greater number who may still have to contend with terrorism would be guilty of criminal folly if they opened up a second front with Britain as the other enemy”’ – The Sunday Telegraph (16 October 1994).
criminals return to the scene of the crime (sometimes murderers…) There is no obvious source for this proverbial saying. A French propaganda poster from the First World War has the slogan: ‘Les assassins reviennent toujours…sur les lieux de leur crime.’ In fiction, Raskolnikov does indeed return to the scene of his crime in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866), though the phrase is not used. From H. B. Creswell, Thomas, Chap. 5 (1918): ‘I crept out of the house like a murderer fascinated by the scene of his crime’. From Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death, Chap. 6 (1927): ‘It is a well-established psychological fact that criminals…revisit the place of the crime.’ In The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (US 1930), a policeman says: ‘I believe that the criminal always returns to the scene of his crime.’ From the BBC radio Goon Show (15 October 1954): ‘We all know that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.’ There may be a slight allusion to Proverbs 26:11: ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly’.
crisis, what crisis? The British Prime Minister James Callaghan may be said to have been eased out of office by a phrase he did not (precisely) speak. Returning from a sunny summit meeting in Guadeloupe to Britain’s ‘winter of discontent’ on 10 January 1979, he was asked by a journalist at a London airport press conference: ‘What is your general approach and view of the mounting chaos in the country at the moment?’ Callaghan replied: ‘Well, that’s a judgement that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from the outside (and perhaps you are taking rather a parochial view), I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.’ Next day, The Sun carried the headline: ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ Callaghan lost the May 1979 General Election. The editor of The Sun was given a knighthood by the incoming Prime Minister. Some people insist on recalling
