ABSTRACT

A good example of Cockney sarcasm at its humorously trenchant best. had your time. See: you’ve had your time. haha! heehee! ‘Briefly c. 1920…was used as a greeting-without any counter’ (R.S., 1975): c. 1921-4. Cf pip-pip! and tootle-oo! hail, hail, the gang’s all here! was orig. and popularized by a 1917 song so titled, words by Estrom, music by Morse, sung by Sullivan, as one learns from Edward B.Marks, They All Sang, 1934, and as I learned from my friend, W.J.B. Ed. McBain uses it as c.p. title for one of his detective novels. Haines. See: my name is H. hair(s). See: don’t look down; every hair; get your h.; his hair; I washed; keep your h.; more hair; shall I put; she had; that’ll grow; there’s hair; two hairs; you can’t grow. half. See: he’s a cunt; no, half; not half; you ain’t ‘alf; you don’t know the h.; and: half an hour is soon lost at dinner. In S, Dialogue II, Lord Smart says, ‘Pray edge a little to make more room for Sir John. Sir John, fall to, you know half an Hour is soon lost at Dinner’, which is the only record I have of this c.p., joc. ironic and reminiscent of very long sessions: prob. c. 1690-1760. half an hour past hanging time, mostly prec. by it’s. Also in S is this c.p. reply to ‘What’s the time?’: NEV[EROUT]: [to Lady Answerall] Pray, Madam, do you tell me, for I let my Watch run down. LADY ANSW: Why, ‘its half an Hour past Hanging Time.