after the Lord Mayor's show
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From the proverb "After the Lord Mayor's show comes the dust-cart" (or "donkey-cart", or "shit-cart"). Bringing up the rear of the Lord Mayor's Show is a team to clean the manure of the pageant's horses.
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Prepositional phrase
[edit]after the Lord Mayor's show
- (idiomatic) Said of a disappointing or mundane event occurring straight after an exciting, magnificent, or triumphal event.
- 1864, George Waters, Indian gleanings and thoughts of the past[1], G.H. Windeyer, Chatham, page 154:
- as is usual on all such occasions, after gaiety comes squalor; or, as we observe in respect to the annual pageant of the City of London that "after the Lord Mayor's Show comes a,—donkey-cart,
- 1995 December 10, Clem Thomas, “White hot Swansea”, in The Independent (UK)[2]:
- The All Whites came into this match hotfoot from their stunning victory over Castres last Tuesday which took them into the semi-final of the prototype European Cup. ... For a while it looked as if it might be a case of after the Lord Mayor's show as Swansea struggled with one of their dozy moods, against Treorchy.
- 2006, Jeremy Carrad, Running on Empty, Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie, →ISBN, page 40:
- "After the Lord Mayor's Show." Freddy looked up from reading Punch. "What is, old fruit?" "The excitement's gone. Back to dull monotony."
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1986, Eric Partridge, Paul Beale, A dictionary of catch phrases: British and American, from the sixteenth century to the present day, 2nd edition, Routledge, →ISBN: