Heading
night!' etc., as also by 'carry me home!' 'carry me upstairs!' 'carry me out and leave me in the gutter!' A writer in Notes and Queries [2 S., iii., 387] states it to have been in use circa 1780. [The origin is obscure, but some derive it from the Nunc dimittis (Luke ii. 29).]
1857. Notes and Queries, 16 May, p. 387, col. 2. Carry me out and bury me decently. Do any of your correspondents recollect to have heard this phrase?
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xlv. And so the president comes out to see the St. Ambrose boat row? Seldom misses two nights running. Then 'carry me out, and bury me decently' . . . Don't be afraid. I am ready for anything you like to tell me.
1864. The Reader, Nov. 12. Mr. Hotten has carry me out. Well the equivalent 'Federal' is 'D'you tell?'
Carry On, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To
make oneself conspicuous by
a certain line of behaviour; to
conduct oneself wildly or recklessly;
to joke or frolic; also in
a special sense applied to open
flirtation on the part of both
sexes.
French equivalents are canarder (based on canard = a 'take in,' an extravagant or absurd story); faire du jardin (popular).
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. iii. With lynx-eyes she notes how Lady Carmine's eldest girl is carrying on with young Thriftless.
1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xxxv. 'She and I carried on for a whole season. People talked.
1884. M. Twain, Huckleberry Finn, ch. xxii., 222. And all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people.
Carry one's real estate about one, verbal phr. (American).—To neglect the finger nails till they show a black rim; to go so unwashed as to display a considerable amount of what Palmerston called 'matter in the wrong place.'
1877. Joseph Hatton, in Belgravia, April, p. 221. We looked at the hands of several of the gamblers, and found that they carried their real estate with them.
Carry Out One's Bat.—See Bat.
Carry the Stick, verbal phr.
(Scotch thieves').—To rob in the
manner described in quotation.—See
also Tripping up.
1870. Times. 21 Sept [Marlborough Street Police Court Report.] Police Sergeant Cole said the prisoner's plan was for the woman to go up to well-dressed elderly or drunken men, to get them into conversation, and rob them. The male prisoner would then come up, and, pretending to be a detective, make a disturbance, so as to enable the woman to escape. The practice was called in London 'tripping up,' and in Scotland, where it is also practised, carrying the stick.
Carsey, subs. (thieves').—A house,
den, or crib. [From the Lingua
Franca casa = a house.] For
synonyms, see Ken.
Cart, verb (University).—To defeat: in a match, a fight, an examination, a race, &c. We carted them home = we gave them an awful licking.
In the cart, or carted, phr. (racing).—1. An employee is said to put an owner in the cart when, by some trick or fraud, his horse is prevented from winning. Also in the box.
1889. Evening Standard, 25 June. [Sir Chas. Russell's speech in Durham-Chetwynd case.] It was alleged that in two races run by Fullerton in 1887, Sir George Chetwynd—to use a vulgarism—had been put in the cart by his Jockey.
