and Richard Murdoch, and this phrase was used by way of introduction to a boring anecdote, perhaps as a way of changing the subject.
didn’t he do well? From the BBC TV show The Generation Game when presented (1971–8) by Bruce Forsyth (b. 1928) who soon had the nation parroting this and other catchphrases. ‘Didn’t he do well?’ first arose when a contestant recalled almost all the items that had passed before him on a conveyor belt (in a version of ‘Kim’s Game’). However, it is also said to have originated in about 1973 with what a studio attendant used to shout down from the lighting grid during rehearsals. Thirty years later, Forsyth was introducing yet another game show on BBC TV, with the title Didn’t They Do Well? Good game…good game! was encouragement to contestants. Nice to see you, to see you…/ Nice! was the opening exchange of greetings with the studio audience (they supplied the rejoinder). Forsyth would also say Anthea, give us a twirl – an invitation to the hostess, Anthea Redfern (to whom he was briefly married), to show off her skirt of the week.
did she fall or was she pushed? The original form of this inquiry is said to date from the 1890s when it had to do with loss of virginity. Then it was supposedly used in newspaper reports (circa 1908) of a woman’s death on cliffs near Beachy Head. Thorne Smith alluded to the phrase in the title of a novel Did She Fall? (1936). In You Only Live Twice, Chap. 2 (1964), Ian Fleming had: ‘The coroner gave an open verdict of the “Fell Or Was Pushed” variety.’ The line ‘Was she pushed or did she jump?’ occurred in the song ‘Well! Well! Well! (My Cat Fell Down the Well)’ by Shand/Moll/Robertson (1970s). Now applied to both sexes, the formula usually inquires whether they departed from a job of their own volition or whether they were eased out by others. (Hence, the 1970s graffito, ‘Humpty Dumpty was pushed…by the CIA’.)
did the earth move for you? Now only jokingly addressed to one’s partner after sexual intercourse, this appears to have originated as ‘Did thee feel the earth move?’ in Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). It is not uttered in the 1943 film version, however. Headline from The Sport (22 February 1989): ‘Sport Sexclusive On A Bonk That Will Make The Earth Move’.
did you spot this week’s deliberate mistake? As a way of covering up a mistake that was not deliberate, this expression arose from the BBC radio series Monday Night at Seven (later Eight) in circa 1938. Ronnie Waldman had taken over as deviser of the ‘Puzzle Corner’ part of the programme which was presented by Lionel Gamlin. ‘Through my oversight a mistake crept into “Puzzle Corner” one night,’ Waldman recalled in 1954, ‘and when Broadcasting House was besieged by telephone callers putting us right, Harry Pepper [the producer] concluded that such “listener participation” was worth exploiting as a regular thing. “Let’s always put in a deliberate mistake,” he suggested.’ Waldman revived the idea when he himself presented ‘Puzzle Corner’ as part of Kaleidoscope on BBC Television in the early 1950s, and the phrase ‘this week’s deliberate mistake’ has continued to be used jokingly as a cover for ineptitude.
die See BETTER TO.
die another day When the makers of the James Bond movies finally exhausted the title phrases supplied by Ian Fleming, the character’s creator, some tantalizing new ones emerged (see TOMORROW NEVER DIES; WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH). As for Die Another Day (UK/US 2002), it might just be a quotation from A. E. Housman’s poem A Shropshire Lad, No. 56 (1896): ‘But since the man that runs away / Lives to die another day…’
(the) die is cast The fateful decision has been made, there is no turning back now. Here ‘die’ is the singular of ‘dice’, and the expression has been known in English since at least 1634. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he is supposed to have said ‘Jacta alea est’ – ‘the dice have been thrown’ (although he actually said it in Greek). ‘At 4 a.m. on June 5 the die was irrevocably cast: the invasion would be launched on June 6 [1944: the D-Day landings in Normandy]’ – Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (Vol. 5, 1952); ‘Making reality take over in takeovers…Whatever finance directors may argue, the die is cast and they will have to comply from next year’ – The Times (22 September 1994); ‘Ardiles might still be at Tottenham – in one capacity or another – had he buried his pride and accepted a sideways shift after the 3–0 Coca-Cola Cup humiliation at Notts County last Wednesday that, he conceded, ended his Spurs career; “the die was cast” even before Saturday’s home win over West Ham’ – The Guardian (2 November 1994).
(to) die with one’s boots on (sometimes die in one’s boots/shoes) Meaning, to die violently or to be hanged summarily. Used in England by the 18th century and in the American West by the 1870s. From Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chap. 48 (1872): ‘They killed each other on slight provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed themselves – for they held it almost shame to die otherwise than “with their boots on,” as they expressed it.’ The American Western use was firmly ensconced in the language by the time of the 1941 Errol Flynn film They Died With Their Boots On, about General Custer and his death at Little Big Horn. The title of a porn film with Vivien Neves was She Died With Her Boots On (UK 1970s). In one sense, the phrase can suggest an ignominious death (say, by hanging) but in a general way it can refer to someone who dies ‘in harness’, going about his work, like a soldier in the course of duty. ‘To die with one’s boots off‘ suggests, rather, that one dies in bed.
different See AND NOW FOR; AS DIFFERENT.
(to march to a) different drummer To act in a way expressive of one’s own individualism. The concept comes from Henry David Thoreau in Walden (1854): ‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ Hence, presumably: Different Drummer, a ballet (1984) choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan; The Different Drum (1987), a work of popular psychotherapy by M. Scott Peck; and Different Drummer, a BBC TV series (1991) about eccentric American outsiders.
different strokes for different folks This means ‘different people have different requirements’. The proverb is repeated several times in the song ‘Everyday People’ (1968) sung by Sly and the Family Stone. Diff’rent Strokes was the title of a US TV series (from 1978 onwards) about a widowed millionaire who adopts two black boys. Wolfgang Mieder in Proverbs Are Never Out of Season (1993), welcoming this relatively new coinage from the southern USA of the 1950s, comments: ‘It expresses the liberating idea that people ought to have the opportunity to live their lives according to their own wishes. For once we have a proverb that is not prescriptive or didactic. Instead, it expresses the American worldview that individuals have the right to at least some free choice.’
(the) difficult we do immediately – the impossible takes a little longer Bartlett (1980) reported that the motto, now widespread in this form, was used by the US Army Service Forces. The idea has, however, been traced back to Charles Alexandre de Calonne (d. 1802), who said: ‘Madame, si c’est possible, c’est fait; impossible, impossible? cela se fera [Madame, if it is possible, it is done; if it is impossible, it will be done].’ Henry Kissinger once joked: ‘The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer’ – quoted in William Shawcross, Sideshow (1979).
dig for victory Shortage of foodstuffs was an immediate concern in the UK upon the outbreak of the 1939–45 war. On 4 October 1939, Sir Reginald Dorman Smith, the Minister of Agriculture, broadcast these words: ‘Half a million more allotments, properly worked, will provide potatoes and vegetables that will feed another million adults and one-and-a-half million children for eight months out of twelve…So, let’s get going. Let “Dig for victory” be the
