Inspired by this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=361855
Did Monty Python invent this catchphrase? Or was it current in Brit popular culture before MP?
Current Brit popular culture before, along with the ever-popular " 'ello 'ello 'ello, what’s all this, then?"
It’s a staple of British movies, etc., from before Monty Python: a bobby coming onto a scene and going, “What’s all this then?”
And a “bobby” is an old-fashioned word for policeman, or copper, coming from Sir Robert Peel, who was Home Secretary when the British police force was started. (An even older word for British coppers is “peelers” – but that’s no longer currently used by anyone).
Of course, the ritual response is “It’s a fair cop, guv’ner,” and it has ever been thus.
Help me here.
Wasn’t the phrase used by one of the bankers on David Tomlinson (as George Banks) when he brought his children to the bank in “Mary Poppins?”