Spectator N0 2682 - Exchanges By Doc
Crosswords1 min ago
Happy as Larry...
10 Answers
Just heard this said and wondered if anyone knows who Larry was?
Answers
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According to Phrase finder:
There are two commonly espoused contenders. One is the Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847 - 1917). Foley was a successful pugilist who never lost a fight. He retired at 32 and collected a purse of £1,000 for his final fight. So, we can expect that he was known to be happy with his lot in the 1870s - just when the phrase is first cited.
The alternative explanation is that it relates to the Cornish and later Australian/New Zealand slang term 'larrikin', meaning a rough type or hooligan, i.e. one predisposed to larking about. 'Larrikin' would have been a term that Meredith would have known. The earliest citation of that is also from New Zealand and also around the time of the first citation, in H. W. Harper's Letters from New Zealand, 1868:
"We are beset with larrikins, who lurk about in the darkness and deliver every sort of attack on the walls and roof with stones and sticks."
There are two commonly espoused contenders. One is the Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847 - 1917). Foley was a successful pugilist who never lost a fight. He retired at 32 and collected a purse of £1,000 for his final fight. So, we can expect that he was known to be happy with his lot in the 1870s - just when the phrase is first cited.
The alternative explanation is that it relates to the Cornish and later Australian/New Zealand slang term 'larrikin', meaning a rough type or hooligan, i.e. one predisposed to larking about. 'Larrikin' would have been a term that Meredith would have known. The earliest citation of that is also from New Zealand and also around the time of the first citation, in H. W. Harper's Letters from New Zealand, 1868:
"We are beset with larrikins, who lurk about in the darkness and deliver every sort of attack on the walls and roof with stones and sticks."
I had a goat once called Slack Alice. A big white one. It used to eat all my washing off the line and we had to get rid of it when it bit my son's ear. It was only trying to nuzzle him I think, but Alice was not very gentle....
I have a photograph of him being 'nuzzled' - my son thinks it so cruel of me that when he was being "eaten alive by a goat" instead of consoling him, I took photographs......
I have a photograph of him being 'nuzzled' - my son thinks it so cruel of me that when he was being "eaten alive by a goat" instead of consoling him, I took photographs......
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