"Bob's your uncle" antedating (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

The BBC Mystery show (shown on U.S. Public Television) "Foyle's War" was
produced in the last decade, but was set in Hastings, England during
WWII.  In one episode, a character says (instead of "Bob's your uncle")
"Robert's your father's brother".  I've always wondered if that was
anachronistic, and now I guess not.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Stephen Goranson
> Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 10:56 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Bob's your uncle" antedating (1932)
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      "Bob's your uncle" antedating (1932)
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> --------
>
> 1937 Bob's your uncle in Partridge (and OED).
> 1937 Bobs your uncle in archive.
> 1938 Bob's yer uncle in archive.
>
> The Observer [London]. Jun 19, 1932, page 7, col. 5.
> Just Out
> Some Very New Books
> ....
> A strident liveliness spoils "The Travels of Tramp-Royal
(Blackwood...)
> for
> readers not temperamentally akin to a writer who exclaims "Bob's your
> uncle!"
> and "Aha says I." It tells of a tramp through some of the wildest and
> loveliest
> parts of Scotland, "with a peter full of everything on my back and a
> billy full
> of nothing on my hip." Mr. Matt Marshall [author]....
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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