Not Quite Cricket

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

Super, who’s this?

This is Karen LeBeck, and I’m calling from Tallahassee, Florida.

Hi, Karen. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Karen. What’s up?

I am calling about a phrase that my grandmother uses. She is 92 years old and from New Hampshire, grew up in rural New Hampshire, and she uses the phrase, not quite cricket. And she uses that when someone has done something, you know, not really illegal, but they’ve done something that is not right. And so she’d say, you know, well, that’s not quite cricket. And I was just wondering where this phrase, you know, came from.

So you’re wondering if it has to do with insects?

I know there’s the sport, you know, cricket as well. But I just can’t imagine that growing up on a farm in New Hampshire, you have some sort of reference to a game that played so far away. So I’ve never heard anyone else use it besides her and my grandfather, and I just didn’t know where it came from.

Did she ever spend any time in the U.K., maybe during the war?

Well, my grandfather was a lineman in World War II. He was over in Europe, but he wasn’t in England or something where I’d picture them playing that game.

Okay.

Yes, it does have to do with the world’s second most popular sport.

Second most?

Yes.

Oh, after hockey, right?

After figuring out etymologies.

Oh, I see. Yeah, it actually has to do with cricket, the sport. Especially in the Victorian era, cricket was known as a game of great sportsmanship and almost manners. And players were expected to abide by what they called the spirit of the game. You know, you had these people in these very neat white uniforms and being all sportsmanlike and gentlemanly. And so if something wasn’t cricket or wasn’t quite cricket, then somebody wasn’t playing by the rules.

Well, they weren’t playing by the spirit.

The spirit. Yes. Yes. The courtesy. The sportsmanship. Obey the rules, but not the spirit.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

Yes, it’s a less genteel game now, but especially in the Victorian era. Is it common to certain parts of the United States that they would use this phrase? Because, you know, now I live in the South, and I’ve never heard it, you know, uttered down here.

Yeah, I’m not sure it’s a regional component so much as just what your affinity is. I mean, my mother was from the South, and she said it all the time, but then she was a big Anglophile.

Oh, I teach, you know, third graders, and sometimes I say it to them, and they look at me like I’m crazy, and it’s just one of those phrases that’s in my head, and I’m saying it, but I really didn’t know where it came from.

Oh, you’re saying it to third graders.

I bet they’re picturing Jiminy on their shoulder.

Probably. They’re just staring at me.

Yeah, which I could, yeah, if I were a little kid, that’s what I would think, that it was Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder telling me not to do something.

It would only take one point of contact to pick up the term. Like maybe she read a Dorothy Sayers novel or particularly loved a particular British movie or had a British radio show that she liked to listen to or something.

Okay.

Yeah, and it could have been author. She does read pretty widely, so maybe she did pick it up there. And I never think to ask her when I’m with her because it just doesn’t come up. But it would be interesting to know where she first heard it and if she’s been using it her whole life.

Yeah, that’d be a good discussion.

Thank you for your call. And I just want to say thank you to you because you’re a teacher and you guys do the hard work.

Yay.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you. We do it because we love it. So thank you.

Take care, Karen.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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