Resting On Your Laurels

Caesar: 'Ere, where are my laurels? [hitches up his arse and finds them on his seat] Oh, I've been resting on them.

This classic gag from the film "Carry On Cleo" in which Kenneth Williams puts on a masterful performance as Roman emporer Julius Caesar, goes no way to explaining the meaning of the phrase "Resting On Your Laurels". We don't literally sit on a laurel-leaf headband, we basically find a (usually unwise) comfort in our inertia.

But what's that got to do with laurels?

There's a toga and a dress circle ticket at the colosseum for the winner.

Matt: winner!

This phrase is a kind of cockney rhyming slang. It refers to the mornings that you awaken lying on your front with morning glory: Laurels = Laurel and Hardy, Hardon! "I awoke resting on my Laurel!" (As I do most mornings!)

Mike:

The phrase was actually introduced back in the sixties when Cilla Black was a struggling young starlet. Failing to entertain her audiences with her singing, dancing and general chit-chat, she found that the only talent she had was her repeated usage of her catchphrase "Lorra Lorra Laffs". Her producer once remarked that it sounded like she was saying "Laurel Laurel Laffs" and that since Cilla in the decades to come never added anything of further value to her act, she was resting on her "Laurel Laurel Laffs". Not a lot of people know that.

Phrases And Their Origins

• Taken To The Cleaners
• Minding Your P's And Q's
• Hoist By His Own Petard
• Freeze The Balls Off A Brass Monkey
• Full Of Beans
• Kettle Of Fish
• Resting On Your Laurels
• Bone Up
• The Buck Stops Here
• Forty Winks
• On Tenter Hooks
• Up The Swanee
• Not On Your Nelly
• Stick It Up Your Arse
• Cloud Nine

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Tell your friends. Better still, tell your enemies.

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