any time, any place, anywhere A line from Martini advertisements in the UK from the early 1970s. Barry Day of the McCann-Erickson advertising agency that coined the phrase agreed (1981) that there is more than a hint of Bogart in the line, but adds: ‘As a Bogart fan of some standing, with my union dues all paid up, I think I would have known if I had lifted from one of his utterances, but I honestly can’t place it.’ Possibly there is a hint of Harry Lime, too. In the film The Third Man (1949), Lime says (in the run-up to the famous cuckoo-clock speech): ‘When you make up your mind, send me a message – I’ll meet you any place, any time…’ Two popular songs of the 1920s were ‘Anytime, Any Day, Anywhere’ and ‘Anytime, Anywhere, Any Place – I Don’t Care’. The exact phrase ‘any time, any place, anywhere’ had occurred, however, before the Martini ads in the song ‘I Love To Cry at Weddings’ from the musical Sweet Charity (1966) and in the film script of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (US 1958). Precisely as ‘Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere’, it was the title of an R&B hit for Joe Morris in the US (1950) – sung by Little Laurie Tate. Even earlier it was spoken in the film The Strawberry Blonde (US 1941) of which the last lines are: ‘When I want to kiss my wife, I’ll kiss her anytime, anyplace, anywhere. That’s the kind of hairpin I am’ – this was written by the Epstein brothers who co-wrote Casablanca, so perhaps that is the Bogart connection? And then in His Girl Friday (US 1940), Cary Grant says to Rosalind Russell: ‘I’d know you anytime, anyplace, anywhere’ – having just re-met his ex-wife, he is recalling a line he had used to her on the night he proposed. In April 1987, a woman called Marion Joannou was jailed at the Old Bailey for protecting the man who had strangled her husband. She was nicknamed ‘Martini Marion’ because, apparently, she would have sex ‘any time, any place, anywhere’.
a-okay Another way of saying ‘OK’ or ‘All systems working’. From NASA engineers in the early days of the US space effort ‘who used to say it during radio transmission tests because the sharper sound of “A” cut through the static better than “O”’ – Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (1979). Now largely redundant, it seems never to have been used by astronauts themselves. President Reagan, emerging from a day of medical tests at a naval hospital in June 1986, pronounced himself ‘A-OK’. Another derivation is that ‘a-okay’ is a melding of ‘A1’ and ‘OK’.
‘appen ‘It may happen; happen it may; maybe; perhaps’ – a North of England dialect expression, used for example by Uncle Mort (Robin Bailey), the scuffling, seedy old misogynist in Peter Tinniswood’s funereal Yorkshire comedy series I Didn’t Know You Cared on BBC TV (1975–9).
apple See AMERICAN AS.
(to be the) apple of one’s eye To be what one cherishes most or holds most dear. The pupil of the eye has long been known as the ‘apple’ because of its supposed round, solid shape. To be deprived of the apple is to be blinded and lose something extremely valuable. The Bible has: ‘He kept him as the apple of his eye’ in Deuteronomy 32:10.
apple-pie order Meaning ‘with everything in place; smart’, this expression (known since 1780) possibly derives from the French cap-à-pied, wearing armour ‘from head to foot’. Another suggested French origin is from nappe pliée, a folded tablecloth or sheet – though this seems a more likely source for the term apple-pie bed, known since 1781, for a bed made so that you can’t get into it. On the other hand, a folded cloth or napkin does convey the idea of crispness and smartness.
(an) appointment in Samarra An appointment with Death, or one that simply cannot be avoided. The novel Appointment in Samarra (1934) by John O’Hara alludes to the incident – described also by W. Somerset Maugham in his play Sheppey (1933) – in which a servant is jostled by Death in the market at Baghdad. Terrified, he jumps on a horse and rides to Samarra (a city in northern Iraq) where he thinks Death will not be able to find him. When the servant’s master asks Death why he treated him in this manner, Death replies that he had merely been surprised to encounter the servant in Baghdad…‘I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’ The story appears earlier in Jean Cocteau, Le Grand Écart (1923) – translator not known: ‘A young Persian gardener said to his Prince: “Save me! I met Death in the garden this morning, and he gave me a threatening look. I wish that by tonight, by some miracle, I might be far away, in Ispahan.” The Prince lent him his swiftest horse. That afternoon, as he was walking in the garden, the Prince came face to face with Death. “Why,” he asked, “did you give my gardener a threatening look this morning?” “It was not a threatening look,” replied Death. “It was an expression of surprise. For I saw him there this morning, and I knew that I would take him in Ispahan tonight”.’
approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed Ironic comment on the source of praise or compliment. There is no actual Sir Hubert Stanley in Who Was Who or the DNB. However, there is a Sir Herbert Stanley, colonial administrator (1872–1955) who might fit the bill. But no, the origin of this remark is the line ‘Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed’ which comes from the play A Cure for the Heartache, Act 5, Sc. 2 (1797) by the English playwright Thomas Morton (?1764–1838). Charles Dickens has ‘Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley’ in Dombey and Son, Chap. 1 (1846–8). P. G. Wodehouse uses the expression as ‘this is praise from Sir Hubert Stanley’ in both Psmith Journalist, Chap. 15 (1915) and Piccadilly Jim, Chap. 18 (1918). It is alluded to in Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, Chap. 15 (1935): ‘At the end of the first few pages [Lord Peter Wimsey] looked up to remark: “I’ll say one thing for the writing of detective fiction: you know how to put your story together; how to arrange the evidence.” “Thank you,” said Harriet drily; “praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed”.’
après nous le déluge [after us, the flood] The Marquise de Pompadour’s celebrated remark to Louis XV was made on 5 November 1757 after Frederick the Great had defeated the French and Austrian armies at the Battle of Rossbach. It carries with it the suggestion that nothing matters once you are dead and has also been interpreted as a premonition of the French Revolution. Bartlett (1980) notes that this ‘reputed reply’ by the king’s mistress was recorded by three authorities, though a fourth gives it to the king himself. Bartlett then claims the saying was not original anyway but ‘an old French proverb’. However, the ODP has as an English proverb, ‘After us the deluge’…deriving from Mme de Pompadour. Its only citation is Burnaby’s Ride to Khiva (1876): ‘Our rulers did not trouble their heads much about the matter. “India will last my time…and after me the Deluge”.’ Metternich, the Austrian diplomat and chancellor, may later have said ‘après moi le déluge’, meaning that everything would grind to a halt when he stopped controlling it. The deluge alluded to in all cases is a dire event like the Great Flood or ‘universal deluge’ of Noah’s time.
Aquarius