All gas and gaiters

Origin of: All gas and gaiters

All gas and gaiters

This expression was coined by Charles Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby (1839). The words were deliberately nonsensical, but in the Dickensian context, meant that everything was just fine and dandy. Dickens was a very popular author and the expression caught on in Victorian England from the mid-19th century onwards. At about this time, some twenty years after Dickens had coined the expression, the word gas became popular slang for empty talk or bombast. From about the 1920s onwards, an alternative meaning for all gas and gaiters had emerged, one that meant bombastic, empty talk. The expression continues to be used in these two ways with only the context revealing which meaning is being used. The expression in its newer meaning of pompous sermonising was revived briefly in the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) TV comedy series All Gas and Gaiters that ran from 1966-1970.