Brenda - alt.usage.english

Message from discussion Brenda

Brian J Goggin

More options Oct 13 1997, 3:00 am

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english

From: b...@wordwrights.ie (Brian J Goggin)

Date: 1997/10/13

Subject: Re: Brenda

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On Mon, 13 Oct 1997 12:50:24 GMT, rhowards...@mx3.redestb.es (Ross

Howard) wrote:

[...]

>Does anyone know the origin of the other type of libel-proof
>Eyephemisms: the ones used not for people but for the activities they
>allegedly indulged in? The only one I'm fairly sure of is that the
>original "tired and emotional" politician was George Brown. Who, for
>example, was the first to "discuss Ugandan relations?"

There's over a column on this in Nigel Rees's *Phrases & Sayings*, so
I can give neither the full story nor all the caveats. The main points
are:

- venue: a party given by Neil and Corinna Ascherson
- coiner: James Fenton
- Ugandan: name not given, but described as "a former cabinet
colleague of President Obote", "a one-legged former Minister in
President Obote's Government", "the much-loved chairman of the Uganda
Electricity Board, also of the Uganda Red Cross, and an exile for
seven years from the tyranny of Idi Amin."
- party of the, er, second part: leading Irish moralist Mary Kenny
- date: March 1973 or slightly earlier.

It seems that some of the other guests went to watch.

*Brewer's Twentieth-Century Phrase & Fable* gives the same story with
fewer details.

I have a faint memory that Idi Amin later accused one of his
ambassadors, a Ugandan princess, of, er, discussing Uganda in the, er,
powder room at an airport; this as a prelude to sacking her. However,
there is no mention of this in the Rees book.

bjg

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