visited Berlin in 1945 and was preparing to enter Hitler’s bunker, his daughter Mary said to him, ‘Don’t go down the mine, Daddy.’ It comes from a tear-jerking ballad popular with soldiers during the First World War and written by Will Geddes and Robert Donnelly in 1910. The title is, correctly, ‘Don’t Go Down In the Mine, Dad.’
don’t go near the water Phrase (one of two) derived from the nursery rhyme (best known in the USA): ‘Mother, may I go out to swim? / Yes, my darling daughter; / Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, / But don’t go near the water.’ Even Peter and Iona Opie were unable to date this rhyme, but it may not go back beyond 1900. Don’t Go Near the Water was the title of a film (US 1957) about sailors stationed on a South Pacific island – based on a William Brinkley novel. ‘Yes, My Darling Daughter’ was a popular song of 1941 – the Andrews Sisters recorded it – and there was also a play with the title in the late 1930s, subsequently filmed (US 1939). No, My Darling Daughter was the title of a film comedy (UK 1961).
don’t have a cow, man See EAT MY SHORTS.
(you) don’t have to be snippy about it An expression used on a famous occasion. During the night after the US presidential election of November 2000, the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, had phoned his Republican rival, George W. Bush, and announced that he was withdrawing his concession of victory (because of voting irregularities that subsequently delayed a final result for several days). The New York Times reported that Bush said: ‘You mean to tell me, Mr Vice President, that you’re retracting your concession?’ To which Gore responded, ‘You don’t have to be snippy about it.’ The Times’s word expert, William Safire, glossed ‘snippy’ as ‘given to cutting off tiny pieces’, thereby seeming ‘curt, fault-finding, supercilious’ and hence ‘touchy, disrespectful, on your high horse, having an attitude.’ In its original citation by John Bartlett, A Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), ‘snippy’ was categorised as a ‘woman’s word’. It has remained an exclusively American expression since then.
don’t hold your breath! ‘Don’t expect results too soon.’ Perhaps related to the child’s threat ‘I’ll hold my breath until you…’ Not noted before the 1970s. ‘I think the recession’s over, you know’ – ‘I’m not holding my breath.’
don’t just stand there: do something! An amusing exhortation dating from the 1940s, perhaps from services’ slang. Now sometimes reversed: ‘Don’t do anything – just stand there!’
don’t leave home without it Slogan for the American Express credit card. Current in the USA by 1981. Bob Hope once did a parody on a TV special in which he appeared as the Pope carrying his Vatican Express card (‘Don’t leave Rome without it’).
don’t make me laugh Derisive response to something said or suggested. Possibly a shortened version of ‘don’t make me laugh…I’ve got a cracked lip/split lip/cut my lip.’ Partridge/Catch Phrases suggests that these longer phrases, known by the early 1900s, were moribund by the 1940s.
don’t mention the war! Instruction from Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) to the staff of his hotel in BBC TV Fawlty Towers, ‘The Germans’, Series 1, Episode 6 (24 October 1975). Needless to say, he and they go right ahead and do so in this, probably the most remembered episode of the comedy series. It has become a sort of catchphrase. For example, when the England football team defeated Germany 5–1 in a World Cup qualifying game (1 September 2001), both the News of the World and the Independent on Sunday, headlined the story, ‘Don’t mention the score!’
don’t panic! Injunction written on the cover of the eponymous fictional guide featured in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the radio series (1978) and in the preface to the novel (1979) by Douglas Adams. See also under PERMISSION TO SPEAK, SIR!
don’t quote me! Injunction, usually given in a light and informal manner, when advancing a possibly unreliable fact or opinion. Possibly from no earlier than the mid-20th century. ‘Of course, I may be wrong – don’t quote me, for Heaven’s sake’ – Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye (1953).
don’t say Brown – say Hovis Slogan for Hovis bread, from the mid-1930s. One of the firm’s paper bags of that period shows a radio announcer saying, ‘Here’s a rather important correction…I should have said Hovis and not just “brown”.’ The slogan was used in its final form from 1956 to 1964. It still reverberates: in May 1981, when a British golfer, Ken Brown, was deserted by his caddie during a championship, the Sunday Mirror headline was, ‘Don’t Say Brown, Say Novice’.
don’t shoot the pianist! Injunction, in the form of an allusion. Oscar Wilde reported having seen the notice ‘Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best’ in a bar or dancing saloon in the Rocky Mountains – ‘Leadville’ from Impressions of America (1882–3). Hence, the title of the film Tirez Sur Le Pianiste (France 1960), translated as ‘Shoot the Pianist/Piano-Player’ and Elton John’s 1972 record album, Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano-Player.
don’t some mothers have ’em? Comment about a stupid person. The British comedian Jimmy Clitheroe (1916–73) was a person of restricted growth and with a high-pitched voice who played the part of a naughty schoolboy until the day he died. The BBC radio comedy programme The Clitheroe Kid, which ran from 1957 to 1972, popularized an old Lancashire – and possibly general North Country – saying, ‘Don’t some mothers have ’em?’ In the form ‘Some mothers do ‘ave ’em’, the phrase was used in the very first edition of TV’s Coronation Street (9 December 1960) and later as the title of a series on BBC TV (1974–9) in which Michael Crawford played an accident-prone character, Frank Spencer.
don’t speak to the man at the wheel Injunction to persons travelling by boat or ship not to distract the helmsman. There are numerous references to this phrase in Punch during the 1880s. All is explained by Lewis Carroll in his Preface to The Hunting of the Snark (1876) where, commenting on the line, ‘Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes’, he notes: ‘The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the [Naval] Code [containing Admiralty Instructions], “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words, “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.” So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done until the next varnishing day. During these intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.’ So, the phrase was merely the shipboard equivalent of the modern instruction not to speak to the driver [of a bus] when the vehicle is in motion. When Stanley Baldwin stepped down as Prime Minister, flushed with (short-lived) success over his handling of the Abdication crisis, he made this statement to the Cabinet (28 May 1937) and later released it to the press: ‘Once I leave, I leave. I am not going to speak to the man on the bridge, and I am not going to spit on the deck.’ Earlier, at his inauguration as Rector of Edinburgh University in 1925, Baldwin had expressed a view of the limitations on the freedom of a former Prime Minister in similar terms: ‘A sailor does not spit on the deck, thereby strengthening his control and saving unnecessary work for someone else; nor does he speak to the man at the wheel, thereby leaving him to devote his whole time to his task and increasing the probability of the ship arriving at or near her destination.’ When Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, he duly quoted Baldwin’s ‘Once I leave…’ words in his own statement to the Cabinet (16 March 1976) and also later released them to the press.
don’t spit – remember the Johnstown flood This Americanism is an admonition against spitting. The Johnstown flood of 31 May 1889 entered
