But he did drive a Mustang, didn’t he?
Dear Word Detective: “Roll Up! Roll Up!” There’s a phrase we’ve heard at the circus and even in Beatles and ELP lyrics. When and where did this phrase originate? I’m writing a play that takes place in late 19th century rural England and I’m hoping to be as accurate with my phrase usages as possible! — Annie, New York.
Good question. I certainly remember “Roll up! Roll up!” at the beginning of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. But what is “ELP”? The Wikipedia “disambiguation” (I love that word) page for “ELP” suggests several possibilities, including the baggage code for El Paso Airport, but I suspect you mean Emerson, Lake and Palmer, a British “progressive rock” band popular in the early 1970s. Personally, I was (and remain) partial to Procol Harum.
I’m glad to hear that you are paying close attention to historical accuracy in your novel. There’s nothing that seems to tick off certain reviewers more than Julius Caesar lighting a cigar or Tom Paine greeting Washington with “Wassup, dog?” I wish I thought that readers would also appreciate your attention to detail, but I keep reading surveys indicating that many college students believe Paul Revere used speed-dial on that fateful night.
I think you’re on solid ground having your character use the phrase “Roll up! Roll up!” in the late 19th century, although your margin will be decades rather than centuries. The use of “roll up” as slang for “congregate or gather” (making “Roll up! Roll up!” the equivalent of “Gather round!”) first appeared in print in Australia in 1861. However, as is often the case, we can assume it was in spoken use for at least a few years before it made it into print, and I think we can also assume that the phrase was current in England by your deadline.
The use of “roll up” in this sense appears to invoke the image of rolling things, in this case people, together, perhaps even by allusion to “rolling up” a carpet. A similar sense of “roll up” has long been used to mean “methodically destroy or neutralize” (“He had made a mistake in Berlin, and … his network had been rolled up,” John Le Carre, 1963).
The Oxford English Dictionary lumps the “gather or assemble” usage together with another use of “roll up,” this one in the sense of “arrive” (“A townie. A bit overdressed … he once rolled up in a velvet jacket,” 1976). But while the two senses may be logically related, I would argue that “roll up” in the “arrive” sense refers, at least metaphorically, to the wheels of a conveyance.
Dear Word Detective,
I might be completely wrong, but I thought “Roll Up! Roll Up!” meant “Roll up the curtain,” or “Let’s start the show!”
Doesn’t it relate the stage curtain in the theater? I know the thick stage curtain is obsolete in most of the theaters, but I’m still doubtful about the origin of its usage. . . .
I’ve also seen the word used in a military sense, as in, “roll up the enemy line.” Don’t know a date for first such usage, but have a sense it was connected with cavalry troops.
It seems entirely British. Americans would say “Step right up” as a carnival barker might. The Beatles use is familiar to our generation and seems to imply a mix of both carnival barker inference and vehicular arrival, which one, I cannot tell for certain, but the former seems more likely in the sense of gathering together.