Even more on catchphrases

Oh no: it is time for another update on catchphrases. I have written about these before (here), and have continued recording those items I have encountered.

My Mother always had us in stitches as children with a black and white scary film she went to in London many years ago, where the whatever-it-was was running amok, then everything went silent. Meaningful looks between the lead actors. Winding up for a portentous speech: "Something's happened!". This too was adopted by our family. We still have no idea what the film was.

Then there is "There can be only one" from the film, "Highlander" (Mulcahy, 1986, 1:56:00). Why? Because it implies that as the leaders are, so shall the followers be. Good leadership will inspire good followership. A stink will create a stink throughout.

There is a "barnyard vocabulary" quote from US President Lyndon B. Johnson, where he said, while trying to fire FBI head, J. Edgar Hoover, "Well, it's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in" (Williams, 1973, p. 275). Another of my favourites.

For some reason a phrase that sticks in my mind - incorrectly, as it happens - is a couplet from Wordsworth poem, the Solitary Reaper, which I cite as in remembrance of "old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago" (Gardiner, 1985, p. 505). I find this imagery incredibly evocative. However, it should lead with "For", but I impute that "Of" ;-)

Now a local one. When kicking off his sales pitch, one of the main characters, Jack, in the 2001 film Stickmen said "Let me let you in on a little secret" (Rothwell & Ward, 2001, 13:18) about scamming the elderly into buying water filters. A madam bawling "Off you go!" at one of her girls' drivers (44:18). The writer in a cameo saying "Yeah, OK. I'm not doing anything else" when being picked up by a prostitute (45:25).

The next one is "softly, softly catchy monkey"; saying we should tai hoa (more on that one here). Actually, both were common sayings in our family: maybe due to the rip shit and bust nature of our progress through things! According to Michael Quinion (2013), a highly esteemed reader for the OED, it is derived from a Ghanaian tribal saying, first recorded in print as "softly softly catchee monkey" (Baden-Powell, 1900, p. 6); but actually a likely translation of "the Wolof proverb, Ndànk-ndànk, mooy jàpp golo ci ñaay" or "Slowly, slowly one catches a monkey in the forest" (Wiktionary, 2025).

That brings me to "rip shit and bust"! Common parlance in the 1970s and 1980s in New Zealand, this is someone who crashes through doing a task and usually buggers it up due to their unseemly haste. This is, according to McGill, a Kiwi saying (1988, p. 93).

And to end this epistle: "We're taking this car to Invercargill" from Goodbye Pork Pie (Murphy & Mune, 1981).

Sam

References:

Baden-Powell, R. S. S. (1900). Downfall of Prempeh: A diary of life with the native Levy in Ashanti. Methuen & Co.

Gardiner, H. (Ed.). (1985). The New Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford University Press.

McGill, D. (1988). A Dictionary of Kiwi Slang: Up the boohai shooting pukakas. Mills Publications.

Mulcahy, R. (Director). (1986). Highlander[motion picture]. Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment.

Murphy, G. (Director, Writer), & Mune. I. (Writer). (1981). Goodbye Pork Pie [motion picture]. Hanway Films.

Quinion, M. (2013, October 19). Softly, softly, catchee monkey. World Wide Words. https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-sof2.html

Rothwell, H. (Director), Ward, N. (Writer) (2001). Stickmen [motion picture]. New Zealand Film Commission/Portman Entertainment

Wiktionary. (2025). softly, softly, catchee monkey. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/softly,_softly,_catchee_monkey

Williams, T. H. (1973). Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism. The Journal of American History, 60(2), 267-293. https://doi.org/10.2307/2936776