face that launched a thousand ships, the

An exceptionally beautiful woman; or, ironically, someone lacking in beauty. The phrase comes from Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus (c. 1588), and describes Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Greece, whose legendary beauty led to her abduc- tion by Paris, which set off the Trojan War. “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” wrote Marlowe.

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eagle-eyed

Keen-sighted, either literally or figuratively. Like all birds of prey, eagles of necessity have excellent eyesight, which they need to spot their food supply. Their perspicacity has been transferred to human beings since Roman times. Horace pointed out (Satires, 35 B.C.) that those who are eagle-eyed in spotting others’ faults are blind to their own. “Faith, being eagle-eyed, can . . . see the majestie of God,” wrote Bishop William Barlow
in 1601. Later the term was often put as having an eagle eye.

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eager beaver

An overzealous or extremely ambitious individual. The beaver has been known as an especially hard worker since at least the seven- teenth century, on a par with BUSY AS A BEE. It was only in the twentieth cen- tury that this not-quite-rhyming expression gained currency. It was widely used for overzealous recruits during World War II who chronically dis- obeyed the unwritten rule, Never volunteer, and rapidly became a cliché.

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dark horse, a

An unexpected potential winner. The term dates from the nineteenth century and comes from racing, where a horse is termed “dark” when its ancestry and history are unknown. It was so used by Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, The Young Duke (1831), but the precise origin is obscure. Some think it comes from the owner’s dyeing a horse’s hair to disguise it and so get better odds; others cite the practice of a particular American horse trader who made his fast black stallion look like an ordinary saddle horse, rode into town, set up a race, and consistently came out a winner. The term was soon transferred to political candidates on both sides of the Atlantic. The first American presidential dark horse was James Polk, who won the 1844 Democratic nomination only on the eighth ballot and went on to become president.

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darken my door (again), don’t/never

Go away and don’t come back. This expression, today indelibly affixed to Victorian melodrama in which a young woman is thrown out of the parental home for marrying, not marrying, or some other sinful deed, actually dates back much further. The darkening involved is that of one’s shadow across the threshold, a word occasionally substituted for “door.” Jonathan Swift used the term in Polite Conversation in 1738: “I never darkened his door in my life.” It has been a cliché since the nineteenth century, but may be dying out.

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dance attendance on, to

To obey someone’s slightest whim or wish, to act as someone’s obsequious flunky. The term comes from the ancient cus- tom of having the bride dance with every wedding guest, whether she wanted to or not. It has been used since the early sixteenth century, first in the sense of waiting for someone to grant an audience, as by John Skelton (Why Come Ye Not to Court? 1522), “And syr ye must daunce attendance . . . for my Lord’s Grace hath now no time nor space to speke with you as yet.” By Shakespeare’s time it had been extended to being at someone’s beck and call (“To dance attendance on their lordships’ pleasures,” Henry VIII, 5.2). It was a cliché by about 1700.

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damn with faint praise, to

To compliment so slightly that it amounts to no compliment at all, or even the reverse, a condemnation. The Roman writer Favorinus said, about A.D. 110, that it is more shameful to be praised faintly and coldly than to be censured violently. The practice was taken up early on, especially by literary critics. The classic quotation is from Alexan- der Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1733). In poking fun at the critic Joseph Addison, here called Atticus, Pope said he would “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.” See also LEFT-HANDED COMPLIMENT.

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