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Revision as of 09:44, 14 August 2009 by Coralapus (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) For other uses, see Bob's your uncle (disambiguation).Bob's your uncle is a commonly used expression known mainly in Britain, Ireland and Commonwealth nations. It is often used immediately following a set of simple instructions and carries roughly the same meaning as the phrase "and there you have it" or "quickly"; for example, "To make a ham sandwich, simply put a piece of ham between two slices of buttered bread, and Bob's your uncle."
Etymology
It is a catchphrase sometimes claimed to date to 1887, when British Prime Minister Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury decided to appoint Arthur Balfour to the prestigious and sensitive post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Lord Salisbury was Arthur Balfour's uncle. The difficulty with that proposed explanation is that there is no contemporary documentation for it, and, despite extensive searching, the earliest known published uses of the phrase are two from 1937 and two from 1938 (these and other quotations at American Dialect Society list archived posts by Stephen Goranson).
Usage
In some places in Britain, "Bob's your uncle" is also a way of saying "you're all set", "you've got it made!" or "that's great!" and is used as an expression of jubilation at good fortune. It is used thus in the Alastair Sim film Scrooge, a version of the classic Dickens story A Christmas Carol, where a reformed Ebenezer Scrooge confronts his housekeeper, Mrs Dilber, on Christmas morning. He gives her a guinea (£1.05 in that era, and equivalent to about $100 today) as a Christmas present, and announces he will significantly raise her salary. In a burst of excitement the housekeeper responds, “Bob’s yer uncle! Merry Christmas, Mr Scrooge, in keeping with the situation!”. However, is an anachronism, as A Christmas Carol was first published by Dickens in 1843 and the expression (in the later film) was not in use then.
Usage has also evolved to the expressions "Robert's your father's brother", "Robert's your auntie's husband" and "Robert's your mother's brother" as synonymous phrases. "Fanny's your aunt" appears later.
See also
References
- http://babyduckagreatcanadianwhine.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_archive.html quoting the UK newspaper, The Guardian from 23 December 1999