The phrase that launched a thousand quips

Every now and then I make the mistake of picking down from my reference shelves the volume entitled A Dictionary of Catch Phrases by Partridge and Beale. The reason it is a mistake is that as soon as you open it you forget what you are doing and are drawn into a world of colourful expressions, almost all of which are new to you because they're not used any more, and you go on a world tour of history through an antique market of dusty rejoinders.

"Tell 'em what I did to Colin Bell," for instance. Can you imagine there ever having been such a catchphrase? I came across it for the first time in my life today, and apparently it doesn't refer to any of the Colin Bells in living memory - the footballer or the Scottish broadcaster, for instance - but to an Australian boxer who flourished before the First World War. Apparently there was a comedian of the time called Harry Weldon who used to come on stage dressed as a feeble boxer; when threatened by a big bruiser, he would say to his trainer: "Tell him what I did to Colin Bell!" and then, when the bruiser had vanished, would add, "But don't tell him what Colin Bell did to me!"

That catchphrase, says Partridge, in scholarly fashion, died out during the first part of World War One, which explains why none of us has ever heard it, but there is something rather impressive about having in your hands, as it were, a genuine artefact of language that hasn't been around since about 1916. What is more disturbing about the book is finding that there are catchphrases listed that were current in your own youth, or even later, which are now listed as extinct. "Nice one, Cyril," for instance, or "See you later, alligator," or, "Now for something completely different..."

It takes a sharp-eyed observer to spot current catchphrase-building, but I think Angus Deayton could justifiably lay claim to fathering one or two phrases in Have I Got News for You. One is the single word "allegedly", which Deayton and his colleagues always slipped into libellous statements to defuse them, somewhat in the same way that Ian Richardson's character in House of Cards used to say: "You may say that, but I couldn't possibly comment." Both phrases caught on for a while but, I think, have already vanished. Unlike Deayton's "So no change there, then," which always greets lines such as: "Jeffrey Archer has no active role in politics these days..." and is still commonly used.

It's a peculiarly British habit, this, I think - the making of a joke by adding a stock phrase to what someone else has said. How many of us have said something not particularly amusing, only to have it turned into a joke of sorts by someone else saying: "It's the story of my life!" or, "Not so loud or they'll all want one!" or, "There's no answer to that!" or, of course, "Chance would be a fine thing"? There was a time when people would respond to some obscure fact by putting on Michael Caine's voice and saying, "Not a lot of people know that," as if it were funny, which it may have been once.

One recent expression that has caught on in a big way is: "As one does," or variants of it. Someone says, "I was going along the Piccadilly the other day wearing one green, one brown sock," and while all the other listeners are waiting patiently to hear why this happened and whether it can be made funny, there is always one smart alec who pipes up: "As one does." That is still very trendy, and I wish it wasn't.

But perhaps I am merely jealous, because I have never invented a catchphrase myself. Not that I would particularly want to. The height of my ambition would be to popularise a rare Victorian naval catchphrase recorded by Partridge, presumably used by discontented sailors: "Fuck 'em all except Nelson - and fuck him, too!"

Failing which, I would like to reintroduce a catchphrase used by my old German teacher at school, who, when the noise in class rose above the acceptable level, would take off his glasses, stare at us in mild amazement and say: "Is this the long-awaited mutiny?"

It never failed to do the trick.