[quote]Originally posted by johnfowles:
Quote:
"
not on your Nellie!
Exclam. No way! Not on your life! A shortening of the rhyming slang not on your nellie duff, where nellie duff rhymes on puff which refers to life, hence not on your life. [1940s]
rathr a convoluted association methinks but then those Cockney folk are wonderfully inventive people!!!
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In retrospect I am amazed that nobody asked who Nellie Duff was when she was at home or when away for that matter
Th obvious thrite answer has to be "Hilary's Mother or great greast.. grandmother"
I was curious myself so I googled as is my wantI
and found:-
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/nellie.htm
where I failed to find out who this lady was but I did read:-
"a piece of London-based rhyming slang: “Nellie” = “Nellie Duff” = “puff”. There was certainly an older slang phrase in existence: not on your puff, meaning “not on your life; never” in which “puff” means “breath” and so “breath of life” and so life itself"
more googling led to
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question72327.html
where I was informed
"Another curious expression my father used back in the 1940s was not on your Nellie, which some authorities think had been imported from the USA about ten years beforehand"
and
"I found a bit more information. It is a truncated expression that meant "not likely" because it was based on the traditional song "Nelly the Elephant" and the full phrase was an expression about being about as likely as riding into town on somebody else's elephant."
Intriguingly I also found
http://www.hhpl.on.ca/GreatLakes/Wre...s.asp?ID=19729
which contains this Gord related news from 1895
"SCHOONER AND CREW LOST.
The Schooner NELLIE DUFF Foundered Off Lorain, O., Last Night--One man Rescued.
Lorain, Oct. 14. - The schooner NELLIE DUFF foundered two miles off this port last night. The captain and two men were drowned. One man was rescued. "
and
"The schooner NELLIE DUFF, hailing from Detroit and bound from Pelee Island to Cleveland, loaded with gravel"
Which sounds a trifle familiar!!!
perhaps our resident bard Walter could compose an epic song about that "wreck"
More details to flesh out the tale are on:-
http://www.boatnerd.com/swayze/shipwreck/d.htm
NELLIE DUFF
Other names : none
Official no. : 130334
Type at loss : schooner, wood
Build info : 1885, Port Clinton, OH
Specs : 77x20x6 54g 51n
Date of loss : 1895, Oct 14
Place of loss : near Lorain, OH
Lake : Erie
Type of loss : storm
Loss of life : 3 of 4
Carrying : gravel
Detail : Cargo shifted in heavy seas while she was trying to make port at Lorain in a gale. She sank two miles out when she turned aside to make way for another distressed vessel. By the last day of the year she had disappeared completely.
NELLIE A DUFF, C.B.BENSON and KATE WINSLOW, all schooners owned by the Duff family all were lost on Oct 14, but in different years.
Sources: nsp,is,h,mv,ledc,wb,hgl
Note the Lake it sank on
To help/inspire you I googled for
"what was the indian name for lake erie"
and found
"Dear Twig: Where does the "Erie" part of Lake Erie come from?
A long time ago, around 1600 or so, an Indian nation lived, farmed and hunted on the south shore of Lake Erie. Except it wasn't called Lake Erie then.
The nation was called Erielhonan -- "long tail," or "People of the Panther," a reference to the cougars (aka pumas, panthers, mountain lions) of the region. Sometimes the people wore cougar pelts."
not quite as sonorous as Gitche whatsit I admit!!
[ May 23, 2007, 11:37: Message edited by: johnfowles ]