This is not a commercial for Heinz, but it is ultimately about Ketchup. Only it starts with Bob.
I thought everyone knew Bob, as in the expression “Bob’s Your Uncle”. But as far as some Americans are concerned, that’s not the case! It’s not like we don’t share. There’s the language, the celebrities, and a whole host of other colloquial phrases like “Break a Leg”, “Piece of Cake” and “Better Safe Than Sorry”.
Apparently, “Bob’s Your Uncle” is not shared.
It’s not that there are no American Bobs, I double-checked to be sure. Naming the baby “Bob” peaked 90 years ago, but there are still tens of thousands of them. So why don’t they share the Bob?
Our daughter’s partner is from Connecticut and his parents came for Easter weekend. During dinner, for some reason, the Bob phrase was uttered. “Huh, what?”, “Bob who?”, “He’s your uncle, and?”. They’d never heard the expression.
Yes, they knew “Spill the Beans” and ”Going Cold Turkey” even though there is no food, no beans, no turkey. They knew the “Cats Out of the Bag” and “For the Birds”. Again, the slogans have nothing to do with animals. So there are lots of nonsensical slogans in the U.S., but there’s no Bob.
Bob actually is my uncle, and yes, he became Bob about 90 years ago. He was a super trendsetter then! But that aside, how could the Americans not know? What do Americans say when something is resolved? When it’s all good, or all set, is that it? No Bob? How can it be?
Or maybe my Commonwealth roots are showing. Turns out the phrase originated when a British guy named Bob (ok, Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury) appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1837. “Bob” was Arthur’s uncle too!
It was a big scandal. Despite nepotism’s enduring popularity south of the border, “sons of” just never caught on here in Canada. Ahem.
The “Bob’s Your Uncle” expression took off after Bob the prime minister nepo’d Arthur. The line appeared in several musicals, lots of hugely popular TV shows in the U.K., and according to Wiki, was well used in Commonwealth countries too. I guess that includes me and Canada.
Unfortunately for Bob, he is not setting any naming trends today. But the Bob phrase? It’s still here. Have the Americans got a version of the phrase? Not that I could find.
In Quebec, it is not “Robert Est Ton Oncle”. But there is a Quebec version. It’s very distinct, nepotism-free, and comes with an American flair. It’s “L'Affaire est Ketchup”. At the Quebec City restaurant named that way, the server explained the meaning as ”When you’re packing the car for the big road trip, you’ve got the floaties, the suitcases, the stroller, and the camping gear, and …… “We’re all set! Ready to go, L’Affaire est Ketchup!” Online it says the expression “is unique to the province (or so claim the locals) and means ‘It’s all good’ or ‘everything’s cool’”.
Aka “Bob’s Your Uncle”!!!!
Sadly, I didn’t ask the server why the affaire was Ketchup. But I did find this online, probably from the same server. “The name, according to the server, is an old French Canadian saying which roughly translates to “put ketchup on it, and it will be fine”.
So, wrapping up. Don’t judge a book by its cover, don’t have a bee in your bonnet, always read between the lines, because every cloud has a silver lining.
Jen Gerson of The Line would never use a cliche, a tired metaphor, or overused slogan. Unless it was funny. She’s our guest on the podcast this week and argues that it’s only been the last 50 years that journalists thought they were holier than thou. (a cliché, perhaps?) Before that, journalists were just trying to make money like everybody else, and some were even brave and hard-working.
Whether you have an Uncle Bob or not, it would mean a lot if you subscribed, and even more if you paid! It’s true, it’s the cost of one coffee a month!
I'm told "Fanny" means something else in the U.K. !
Bob's My Uncle too :-) He was named at least 100 years ago.
What's Fanny, besides backside?