Kitabı oku: «A Word In Your Shell-Like», sayfa 16

C

cabbage-looking See I’M NOT SO.

Cabbage Patch Kids Millions of soft, ugly dolls with this name were sold in 1983–4. Created by American entrepreneur Xavier Roberts, they became a craze around the world. People did not purchase them but, tweely, ‘adopted’ them. Whereas, in Britain, babies that are not delivered by the stork are found under a gooseberry bush, in the USA, they are found in ‘cabbage patches’. The ‘stork’ and ‘cabbage-patch’ theories of childbirth were known by 1923; the ‘gooseberry-bush’ by 1903. Compare Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1901), the title of a US children’s novel by Alice Hegan Rice.

cabbages and kings Phrase from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Walrus and the Carpenter’ episode in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Chap. 4 (1871): ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, / ‘To talk of many things: / Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax – / Of cabbages and kings…’ The American writer O. Henry took Cabbages and Kings as the title of his first collection of short stories (1904), and there is a book, Of Kennedys and Kings: making sense of the Sixties by Harris Wofford (1980). However, the alliterative conjunction of ‘cabbages’ and ‘kings’ predates Carroll. In Hesketh Pearson’s Smith of Smiths, a biography of the Reverend Sydney Smith (d. 1845), he quotes Smith as saying about a certain Mrs George Groce: ‘She had innumerable hobbies, among them horticulture and democracy, defined by Sydney as “the most approved methods of growing cabbages and destroying kings”.’

cads See PLAY THE GAME.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion An example of this phrase occurs in Lord Chesterfield’s letters (circa 1740): ‘Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Caesar’s wife, unsuspected.’ Originally, it was Julius Caesar himself who said this of his wife, Pompeia, when he divorced her in 62 BC. In North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives – which is how the saying came into English in 1570 – Caesar is quoted thus: ‘I will not, sayd he, that my wife be so much as suspected.’ Pompeia was Caesar’s second wife, and, according to Suetonius, in 61 BC she took part in the women-only rites of the Feast of the Great Goddess. But it was rumoured that a profligate called Publius Clodius attended, wearing women’s clothes, and that he committed adultery with Pompeia. Caesar divorced Pompeia and at the subsequent inquiry into the desecration was asked why he had done so. ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion,’ he replied. He later married Calphurnia.

ça ira…à la lanterne ‘Ah! Ah! ça ira, ça ira / Les aristocrates à la lanterne’ is the refrain of the French revolutionary song, first heard when the Parisians marched on Versailles (5–6 October 1789). Ça ira, though almost impossible to translate, means something like ‘That will certainly happen’, ‘It will go’, ‘Things will work out.’ À la lanterne is the equivalent of the modern ‘string ‘em up’ (lanterne being a street lamp in Paris useful for hanging aristocrats from). The inspiration for the first line of the refrain may have been Benjamin Franklin’s recent use of the phrase in connection with the American Revolution of 1776. After the French Revolution, the phrase Ça ira caught on in Britain.

cakes and ale A synonym for ‘enjoyment’, as in the expression ‘life isn’t all cakes and ale’. On 4 May 1876, the Reverend Francis Kilvert wrote in his diary: ‘The clerk’s wife brought out some cakes and ale and pressed me to eat and drink. I was to have returned to Llysdinam to luncheon…but as I wanted to see more of the country and the people I decided to let the train go by, accept the hospitality of my hostess and the cakes and ale which life offered, and walk home quietly in the course of the afternoon’ – a neat demonstration of the literal and metaphorical uses of the phrase. Cakes and Ale is the title of a novel (1930) by W. Somerset Maugham. The phrase comes from Sir Toby Belch’s remark to Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, II.iii.114 (1600): ‘Does thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?’. The Arden edition comments that cakes and ale were ‘traditionally associated with festivity, and disliked by Puritans both on this account and because of their association with weddings, saints’ days, and holy days’.

Calcutta See BLACK HOLE; OH!

call See ANSWER THE; DON’T CALL US.

(to) call a spade a spade To speak bluntly, to call things by their proper names without resorting to euphemisms. But why a spade? Said to have arisen when Erasmus mistranslated a passage in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata where the object that ‘Macedonians had not the wit to call a spade by any other name than a spade’ was rather a trough, basin, bowl or boat in the original Greek. The phrase was in the English language, however, by 1539.

calling all cars, calling all cars! What the police controller says over the radio to patrolmen in American cop films and TV series of the 1950s. For some reason, it is the archetypal cop phrase of the period, and evocative. However, the formula had obviously been known before this if the British film titles Calling All Stars (1937), Calling All Ma’s (1937) and Calling All Cars (1954) are anything to go by. Indeed, the phrase appears in an American advertisement for Western Electric radio equipment, dated 1936.

call me madam When Frances Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Roosevelt in 1933, she became the first American woman to hold Cabinet rank. It was told that when she had been asked in Cabinet how she wished to be addressed, she had replied: ‘Call me Madam.’ She denied that she had done this, however. It was after her first Cabinet meeting when reporters asked how they should address her. The Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, Henry T. Rainey, answered for her: ‘When the Secretary of Labor is a lady, she should be addressed with the same general formalities as the Secretary of Labor who is a gentleman. You call him “Mr Secretary”. You will call her “Madam Secretary”. You gentlemen know that when a lady is presiding over a meeting, she is referred to as “Madam Chairman” when you rise to address the chair’ – quoted in George Martin, Madam Secretary – Frances Perkins (1976). Some of the reporters put this ruling into Perkins’s own mouth and that presumably is how the misquotation occurred. Irving Berlin’s musical Call Me Madam was first performed on Broadway in 1950, starring Ethel Merman as a woman ambassador appointed to represent the USA in a tiny European state. It was inspired by the case of Pearl Mesta, the society hostess whom Harry Truman had appointed as US Ambassador to Luxembourg.

(the) call of the unknown (or challenge…) Not recorded in OED2. Found in the speech that the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen gave when he was installed as Rector of the University of Aberdeen in November 1926: ‘We will find in the lives of men who have done anything, of those whom we call great men, that it is this spirit of adventure, the call of the unknown, that has lured and urged them along on their course…’

(a) callow youth An immature, inexperienced young person (in slightly archaic use). ‘One overhears a callow youth of twenty address a still fascinating belle of forty’ – A. M. Binstead, More Gal’s Gossip (1901); ‘There is a slightly awkward father-and-son relationship here between the gullible, disapproving, callow youth who lived and the sophisticated man who writes, and it is the open unresolvability of this tension which makes the book so recognisable and so true’ – The Guardian (17 May 1994); ‘On his first ever visit to the regal ski resort of St Moritz, King Farouk of Egypt, then a callow youth, felt a sartorial fool. He had arrived at the Suvretta House Hotel wearing a black morning suit and nervelessly flicked back the tails as he helped his mother’ – Daily Mail (24 December 1994).

(the) camera cannot lie (or does not lie or never lies) A 20th-century proverb, though its origins have not been recorded. In the script for the commentary of a film (‘Six Commissioned Texts’, I., 1962), W. H. Auden wrote: ‘The camera’s eye / Does not lie, / But it cannot show / The life within.’ ‘The camera cannot lie. But it can be an accessory to the untruth’ – Harold Evans, Pictures on a Page (1978).

camel See EYE OF.

came the dawn (or comes the dawn) A stock phrase of romantic fiction in the early 20th century – also reported to have been a subtitle or inter-title from the early days of cinema. C. A. Lejeune wrote that it was one of the screen title captions illustrated by Alfred Hitchcock in his early days in the cinema, ‘in black letters on a white ground.’ This is confirmed by François Truffaut’s Hitchcock (English version, 1968) in which Hitchcock refers to it as ‘narrative title’. He also mentions a similar title phrase: ‘The next morning…’ ‘Came the Dawn’ was the title of a P. G. Wodehouse short story reprinted in Mulliner Omnibus (1927). The phrase is spoken by Tony Cavendish in the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber play The Royal Family (1927), in which he is a swashbuckling silent film actor, given to speaking in the clichés of screen titling. Again, the line is spoken in the film The Bad and the Beautiful (US 1952) to describe the change of scene the morning after a party and a gambling loss. It is quoted as ‘Comes the Dawn’ in Flexner (1982). Before the coming of film sound, it was possible for a catchphrase to emerge from this kind of use. In A Fool There Was (US 1914), Theda Bara ‘spoke’ the inter-title kiss me, my fool, and this was taken up as a fad expression. Similarly, Jacqueline Logan ‘said’ harness my zebras in Cecil B. De Mille’s King of Kings (US 1925). This became a fad expression for ‘let’s leave’ or as a way of expressing amazement – ‘Well, harness my zebras!’

(as) camp as a row of tents Extremely affected, outrageous, over the top. A pun on the word ‘camp’, which came into general use in the 1960s to describe the manner and behaviour of (especially) one type of homosexual male. As it happens, one of the suggested origins for the word ‘camp’ in this sense is that it derives from ‘camp followers’, the female prostitutes who would accompany an army on its journeyings to service the troops in or adjacent to their tents.

can a (bloody) duck swim! (sometimes does/will a fish swim!) This is said by way of meaning ‘You bet!’, ‘Of course, I will’. ODP has ‘Will a duck swim?’ in 1842. Winston Churchill claimed he said the ‘can’ version to Stanley Baldwin when the Prime Minister asked if he would accept the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1924 government. Lady Violet Bonham Carter spoke the phrase to Churchill when he asked her to serve as a Governor of the BBC in 1941. After this, he referred to her as his ‘Bloody Duck’, and she had to sign her letters to him, ‘Your BD’.

(he/she) can dish it out but can’t take it in Said of people who are unable to accept the kind of criticism they dispense to others. A reader’s letter to Time Magazine (4 January 1988) remarked of comedienne Joan Rivers’s action in suing a magazine for misquoting her about her late husband: ‘For years she has made big money at the expense of others with her caustic remarks. Obviously Rivers can dish it out but can’t take it in.’ The idiomatic phrase was established by the 1930s. In the film Little Caesar (US 1931), Edward G. Robinson says, ‘He could dish it out but he couldn’t take it in.’ In the film 49th Parallel (1941), Raymond Massey, as a Canadian soldier, apparently plays with the phrase when he says to a Nazi, ‘When things go wrong, we can take it. We can dish it out, too.’

candle See CARE OF; HOLD A.

(a) candle in the wind The song ‘Candle in the Wind’ (1973) has words by Bernie Taupin and music by Elton John. The opening words ‘Goodbye Norma Jean’ refer to Marilyn Monroe (who was born Norma Jean Mortenson/Baker): ‘It seems to me you lived your life / Like a candle in the wind. / Never knowing who to cling to / When the rain set in. / And I would have liked to have known you / But I was just a kid / That candle burned out long before / Your legend ever did.’ Elton John sang a revised version of the song at the funeral of Princess Diana (7 September 1997): ‘Goodbye England’s rose; / May you ever grow in our hearts…/ And it seems to me you lived your life / Like a candle in the wind; / Never fading with the sunset / When the rain set in.’ But where did the original title phrase come from? Mencken (1942) gives ‘Man’s life is like a candle in the wind’ as a ‘Chinese proverb’. A French dictionary of proverbs lists ‘La vie de l’homme est comme une chandelle dans le vent’ as Chinese. A Dutch collection of Oriental quotations has: ‘What is the life of Man? A candle in the wind, hoar frost on the roof, the spasm of a fish in the frying pan.’ A poem by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772–846) describing the illusory character of reality contains the phrase ‘a candle’s flame in the wind.’ A Latin emblem book by the French author Denis Lebey de Batilly (1596 edn) has a picture of a man seated at a table amidst classicist architecture. On the table is not a candle but a classical oil-lamp with burning wick. Big clouds with faces and puffed-up cheeks blow at the flame. The Latin motto is (in corrected form): ‘QUID EST HOMO SICVT LVCERNA IN VENTO POSITA [what is Man but a lamp in the wind].’ The four-line Latin commentary says, in translation (from German): ‘Man is like a small lamp, which in the dark night is exposed to the winds blowing from all sides. His flame of life feeds on such meagre, such unreliable oil – it is extinguished when the gale of Death grabs it.’ The English novelist George Meredith later majored in wind-blown candle images in several of his novels. ‘The light of every soul burns upward. Of course, most of them are candles in the wind. Let us allow for atmospheric disturbance’ is from his novel, Diana of the Crossways, Chap. 39 (1885), where it is spoken by the heroine. Charles Joaquin Quirk, an American Catholic priest and a professor at Loyola University, published a book with the title Candles in the Wind in 1931. There is also a book with the same title by Maud Diver (1909). Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a play entitled Candle in the Wind (1960) about moral choices in any society, either communist or capitalist. The original Russian title was Svecha na vetru: (svet kotoryj v tebe) [(A) candle in the wind: (the light which is in thee)], which refers to Luke 11:35. Of course, Taupin may not have been aware of any of these earlier uses. Indeed, according to Philip Norman’s biography of Elton John, Elton (1991), Taupin heard that someone had applied the phrase to the singer Janis Joplin (1943–70), ‘also doomed to early death from drugs’, and took it on from there.

can do! ‘Yes, I can do it!’ in a sort of Pidgin English, popular in the Royal Navy before the First World War. The opposite no can do was established by the time of the Second World War.

can I do you now, sir? From ITMA, and one of the two greatest catchphrases from the BBC radio show (1939–49). It was spoken by Mrs Mopp (Dorothy Summers), the hoarse-voiced charlady or ‘Corporation Cleanser’, when entering the office of Tommy Handley, as the Mayor. Curiously, the first time Mrs Mopp used the phrase, on 10 October 1940, she said, ‘Can I do for you now, sir?’ This was soon replaced by the familiar emphases of ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ that people could still be heard using decades later. Bob Monkhouse recalled (1979) that Dorothy Summers said: ‘Oh, I do wish people wouldn’t expect me to be only Mrs Mopp. That awful char. I never wanted to say it in the first place. I think it was rather distasteful.’ She seems to have been the only person to detect any double meaning in it.

can I phone a friend? Contestant to host (Chris Tarrant) in the original British version of the TV quiz Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? (1999– ). Before answering questions, contestants were encouraged to firm up their resolve by consulting the studio audience or by phoning a friend who had been lined up in advance.

cannon fodder Soldiers regarded as people whose only purpose is to get killed in battle. This may be seen as a translation of the German Kanonenfutter (known by the 1840s) or the French chair à canon (current at about the same time). However, a letter from Captain Richard Pope, describing Marlborough’s cavalry in 1703, uses the phrase with confidence, suggesting that it was an established concept even then: ‘Such a set of ruffians and imbeciles you never beheld, you may call them cannon fodder, but never soldiers.’ Indeed, Shakespeare has the phrase ‘food for powder’, meaning the same thing, in Henry IV, Part 1, IV.ii.65 (1597).

(a) can of worms An unpleasantly complicated problem, as in such phrases as ‘that’s another can of worms’, ‘let’s not open that can of worms’. The image is that of opening a can of tinned food only to find that it is full of writhing maggots. So the implication is that it would be better not to look into something in case it presents unexpected problems. Probably of American origin, by the late 1940s. ‘Mr Berger has opened, in an old American phrase, a fine can of worms. He is suggesting that an impeached President, should he be found guilty, could appeal to the Supreme Court’ – The Times (22 May 1973).

can snakes do push-ups? See IS THE POPE.

can’t be bad! Congratulatory response to good news, popular in Britain in the 1970s – ‘I’ve made a date with that well-stacked blonde in the typing pool’ – ‘Can’t be bad!’ Possibly linked to the usage in the Beatles’ song ‘She Loves You’ (1963): ‘Because she loves you / And you know that can’t be bad…’ ‘Further up the pecking order is the 27-ish woman who left to set up a gilt-trading operation at a rival for £300,000. “She’s nothing special, but she’ll stay three years and do an okay job for them, and from her point of view it can’t be bad”’ – The Independent (13 May 1994); ‘Colin Montgomerie three-putted for the first time in the week as he shot a 72 for 279, but he insisted: “After taking four weeks off and tying for 17th place in America, that can’t be bad”’ – Daily Record (6 March 1995); ‘Uncomfortable parallels between Dracula and Nicolae Ceausescu, the former Stalinist dictator, meant that such a gathering was impossible in the Communist era. But now Europe’s second poorest country after Albania can cash in on the legend. Can’t be bad for garlic growers either’ – Financial Times (22 May 1995).

(he) can’t chew gum and fart at the same time He is really stupid and incapable. The most notable use of this (presumably traditional American) jibe was by President Lyndon Johnson about the man who was eventually to turn into another US President: ‘That Gerald Ford. He can’t fart and chew gum at the same time’ – quoted in Richard Reeves, A Ford Not a Lincoln (1975), and in J. K. Galbraith, A Life in Our Times (1981). This is the correct version of the euphemistic: ‘He couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.’

can’t pay, won’t pay Slogan adopted by those objecting to the British government’s Community Charge or ‘poll tax’ in 1990 and by other similar protest groups. Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay was the English title of the play Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! (1974) by Dario Fo, as translated by Lino Pertile (1981).

(you) can’t throw a brick without hitting…It is very easy to do something because you can’t miss. ‘Combe Regis is just the place for you. Perfect hotbed of golf. Full of the finest players. Can’t throw a brick without hitting an amateur champion’ – P. G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens, Chap. 2 (1906/1921). ‘In a Lancashire cotton-town you could probably go for months on end without once hearing an “educated” accent, whereas there can hardly be a town in the South of England where you could throw a brick without hitting the niece of a bishop – George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). Obviously, this is a development of what appears in Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Chap. 37 (1869): ‘I could throw a rock here without hitting a captain…You’d fetch the captain of the watch, maybe.’

can we talk? Stock phrase of Joan Rivers, the American comedienne and TV chatshow host, by 1984.

(the) canyons of your mind Title phrase of Vivian Stanshall’s 1968 hit song ‘Canyons of Your Mind’ (with the Bonzo Dog Band): ‘In the canyons of your mind / I will wander through your brain / To the ventricles of your heart, my dear / I’m in love with you again.’ Curiously, the phrase was taken from the 1966 Val Doonican hit ‘Elusive Butterfly’ (written by Bob Lind, who had recorded it himself in 1965): ‘You might have heard my footsteps / Echo softly through the distance / In the canyons of your mind.’

can you hear me, mother? The British comedian Sandy Powell (1900–82) recalled in 1979: ‘It was in about 1932/3, when I was doing an hour’s show on the radio, live, from Broadcasting House in London. I was doing a sketch called “Sandy at the North Pole”. I was supposed to be broadcasting home and wanting to speak to my mother. When I got to the line, “Can you hear me, mother?” I dropped my script on the studio floor. While I was picking up the sheets all I could do was repeat the phrase over and over. Well, that was on a Saturday night. The following week I was appearing at the Hippodrome, Coventry, and the manager came to me at the band rehearsal with a request: “You’ll say that, tonight, won’t you?” I said, “What?” He said, “‘Can you hear me, mother?’ Everybody’s saying it. Say it and see.” So I did and the whole audience joined in and I’ve been stuck with it ever since. Even abroad – New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, they’ve all heard it. I’m not saying it was the first radio catchphrase – they were all trying them out – but it was the first to catch on.’

can you tell Stork from butter? Slogan for Stork margarine in the UK from circa 1956. One of the earliest slogans on British commercial TV, it was invariably alluded to in parodies of TV advertising. In the original ads, housewives were shown taking part in comparative tests and tasting pieces of bread spread with either real butter or with Stork.

captains courageous The phrase comes from a ballad, ‘Mary Ambree’, included in Thomas Percy’s Reliques (1765): ‘When captains courageous whom death could not daunt, / Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt, / They mustered their soldiers by two and by three, / And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree.’ Hence, Captains Courageous, title of a novel (1897) by Rudyard Kipling.

captains of industry Prominent figures in business and commerce. ‘Captains of Industry’ was a heading in Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present (1843). ‘A hardnosed captain of industry who wanted a pretty mannequin from tidewater aristocracy’ – D. Anthony, Long Hard Cure (1979); ‘So where are the captains of industry, the entrepreneurs and knights of yesteryear – the modern equivalents of those Victorian worthies who steered the once-great civic authorities?’ – Independent on Sunday (1 May 1994); ‘He has created his own brand of lobbying where prospective clients are wooed by conversation littered with the names of MPs and ministers, captains of industry and mandarins and the endless parties and lunches which they all attend’ – Daily Telegraph (21 October 1994).

caravan See DOGS BARK.

carbon-copy murders Killings that replicate other recent crimes and may have been inspired by them. Journalistic cliché by the 1950s/60s. Listed by Keith Waterhouse as a cliché to be avoided in Daily Mirror Style (1981). But who knows what carbon paper is nowadays? ‘Victim of the week-old “carbon copy” murder’ – Daily Telegraph (3 April 1961); ‘Detectives probing that crime revealed they are checking for possible links with the “carbon copy” murder of housewife Wendy Speakes at Wakefield, Yorkshire, a year ago…A spokesman for Lincolnshire police said last night: “We have requested the file on the Wakefield case because of the similarities with our inquiry. It appears to be a carbon copy murder”’ – Daily Mirror (12 October 1994).

carcase See HABEAS.

card-carrying Paid-up, committed members of any movement (but mostly political or social). ‘The most dangerous Communists in the nation today are not the open, avowed, card-carrying party members’ – Bert Andrews, Washington Witch Hunt, Chap. 2 (1948).

cared See AS IF I.

Cardew do! See HOW DO YOU DO.

careful See BE GOOD AND.

careless talk costs lives Security slogan, during the war, in the UK, from mid-1940. This became the most enduring of security slogans, especially when accompanied by Fougasse cartoons – showing two men in a club, for example, one saying to the other ‘…strictly between four walls’ (behind them is a painting through which Hitler’s head is peeping), or two women gossiping in front of Hitler wallpaper. Compare loose talk costs lives – security slogan (USA only) from the same war.

care of candle ends Proverbial expression for making petty economies. It is possible to melt the stubs of candles down and make new candles from the wax. The OED2 has a citation from 1668, referring to filching candle ends and laying them away, which is not conclusive. But the following citation from 1732 is quite clearly an allusion: ‘When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend / Who living, sav’d a candle’s end” – Alexander Pope Moral Essays – Epistle III to Allen Lord Bathhurst (1732). In the days when candles were a major expense in grand houses, the candle ends were a perquisite of certain servants, to be re-used or sold. British Prime Ministers W. E. Gladstone and John Major seem to have defended themselves from accusations of ‘saving candle ends’ by arguing that ‘many a mickle maks a muckle’. ‘There were scenes of wild enthusiasm, bordering on delirium, in the streets of London yesterday as [Prime Minister] John Major spoke out once more – with all the passion at his command – on the topic of the Citizen’s Charter. Oh, yes. It has been criticised for dealing with a lot of little things. But, said Mr Major, quoting the less colourful Mr Gladstone, “…if you add the candle ends together you get a whole candle”’ – The Guardian (4 December 1992).

caring and sharing The word ‘caring’ – to describe official ‘care’ of the disadvantaged – was stretched almost to breaking point during the 1980s to embrace almost anybody concerned with social and welfare services, in all sorts of combinations that sought to manipulate the hearer. Marginally worse was the facile rhyme of ‘caring and sharing’ used, for example, to promote a Telethon-type fund-raiser in Melbourne, Australia (November 1981). The phrase is probably of American origin: ‘The love I feel for our adopted children is in no way less strong than the love I feel for the three children in our family who were born to us…It is the caring and sharing that count’ – Claudia L. Jewett, Adopting the Older Child (1978); ‘Jeffrey, a very famous model, was walking along a sandy beach, the salt wind ruffling his hair, a small boy on his shoulders. “Caring and sharing, you see,” murmured Geary’ – Daily Telegraph (11 June 1994).

carpe diem Motto meaning ‘enjoy the day while you have the chance’ or ‘make the most of the present time, seize the opportunity.’ From the Odes of the Roman poet Horace. Another translation of the relevant passage is: ‘While we’re talking, envious time is fleeing: / Seize the day, put no trust in the future.’