How's-your-father

[N.R. Mitchum]

In two British novels, both published in 1995, I have come across this
expression in sentences such as, "They went upstairs for some
how's-your-father." The context leaves no doubt as to its meaning --
but where in the world did it come from? What does dear old dad's
health have to do with you-know-what? Is it of recent vintage, and did
it have a specific point of origin?

Nathan Mitchum

[Robert M. Wilson]

In article <326413...@mail.lafn.org>,

About ten lines on it in Partridge *Dictionary of Slang
and Unconventional Usage.*

Briefly, a catch phrase from the music-halls which "turned
to all sorts of ribald, ridiculous and heroic uses" during
W.W.1

[legends]

In article <541i11$8...@cliff.island.net>, r...@mail.duncan.island.net says...

_The Sunday Times_ reports on a French-English dictionary of slang (title
not provided) published last week that gives the French for "a bit of how's
your father" as "une partie de jambes en l'air" ("a bit of legs in the
air").
Depend on the French to tell it like it is.

--
Richard Marsh
Legendary Tours
Stories and Places of Irish Myth and Legend
http://indigo.ie/~legends

[Markus Laker]

"N.R. Mitchum" <aj...@mail.lafn.org>:

> In two British novels, both published in 1995, I have come across this
> expression in sentences such as, "They went upstairs for some
> how's-your-father." The context leaves no doubt as to its meaning --
> but where in the world did it come from? What does dear old dad's
> health have to do with you-know-what? Is it of recent vintage, and did
> it have a specific point of origin?

From _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_:

>>>>
_How's your father?_ A purely rhetorical question that originated as a
humorous catch phrase in the music-halls before the First World War. It
later came to be a synonym for 'nonsense' or meaningless ritual, so that
the Northern Ireland MP Bernadette Devlin was reported in the *Daily
Mail* of 23 April 1969, following her maiden speech, as saying: 'All
this stand up, sit down, kneel down and how's-your-father was so funny.'
Later still, the phrase acquired a sexual connotation on the lines of
^hanky-panky^, as 'a bit of the old how's-your-father'.
<<<<

_Bold_, *italics*, ^small caps^. MP: Member of Parliament.

Markus Laker.

--
In order to thwart programs that harvest email addresses from newsfeeds,
my address is deliberately wrong. Delete the final X.

[N.R. Mitchum]

Markus Laker brought _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ to bear:

> >>>>
> _How's your father?_ A purely rhetorical question that originated as a
> humorous catch phrase in the music-halls before the First World War. It

> later came to be a synonym for 'nonsense' or meaningless ritual [...]

> Later still, the phrase acquired a sexual connotation on the lines of
> ^hanky-panky^, as 'a bit of the old how's-your-father'.
> <<<<

This I discovered when I went rummaging through the Web and found the
phrase used with both sexual and nonsexual connotations -- and just
about equaly divided between them, it seemed.

Nathan Mitchum [post&mail]