Footnotes to the TV series
KIRK: It was an inspiration. But they’re not selling much better than the “Babette ate oatmeal” shirts.
LORELAI: Keep the dream, Kirk.
“Keep the dream alive” is a common motivational phrase, often used in reference to Martin Luther King and his inspirational “I had a dream” speech.
KIRK: People of Stars Hollow, are you ready to rumble?
A variation of the catchphrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble” used at boxing matches and professional wrestling matches. It was created and trademarked by ring announcer Michael Buffer, who has made $400 million from licensing the phrase. The show perhaps uses a different form of it to avoid having to pay a fee.
As will become apparent, Kirk muddles up all his sports while working as the announcer at the hockey game.
A swan song is the final performance or activity in a person’s career, because according to folklore, swans sing beautifully just before they die.
Although this episode does have swans in it, they don’t sing, nor does it involve anyone dying, doing a performance, or ending their career. However, this is the source of the episode title.
LUKE: Okay, looks like that’s the whole nine yards.
“The whole nine yards” or “the full nine yards” is a colloquial American English phrase meaning “everything, the whole lot” or, when used as an adjective, “all the way”. Its origin is unknown.
MADELINE: Oh my God, there’s a hair in mine.
LOUISE: Just close your eyes and think of England, honey.
Close your eyes and think of England is a phrase which references unwanted sexual intercourse, specifically advice to an unwilling wife to accept the sexual advances of her husband, as a wifely duty.
The saying is said to come from the 1912 diary of Alice, Lady Hillingdon [pictured], who wrote:
I am happy now that [my husband] Charles calls on my bedchamber less frequently than of old. As it is, I now endure but two calls a week and when I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs and think of England.
The diary is not available to the public, so this explanation has to remain speculative. It is often thought of as summing up Victorian attitudes to marital sexuality and sex education for girls, although it the saying itself actually seems to date to the twentieth century.
DARREN: One fell swoop, interesting phrase … Origin?
JACK: It was coined in Macbeth and derives from Middle English.
At one fell swoop means “suddenly, in a single action”. The fell part is an archaic word dating to the 13th century meaning “fierce, savage, cruel, ruthless”; it’s the root of the word felon and has gone out of use except for this one instance.
The phrase was first used, and most probably invented, by William Shakespeare, in his play Macbeth, previously discussed. In the play, it is said by Macduff when he hears that all his family and household have been killed:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
The “kite” that Macduff refers to is the bird of prey, commonly used as a hunting bird in Tudor England. You can see that the “fell swoop” is the swoop of the kite as it quickly descends to catch its prey.
Somehow “at one fell swoop” went from meaning something terrible happening all at once, to just anything happening all at once. Darren uses it to mean good thing happening all at once, but I am unable to disassociate it from its original context, and to me it still suggests some fearsome unexpected blow from above. Maybe I read too much Shakespeare!
Jack’s answer is actually pretty inadequate, or even misleading. It’s not certain that Shakespeare coined it, although it’s likely – he should have said that it first appeared in Macbeth, and that Shakespeare has been credited with coining it. The phrase itself is not Middle English, and presumably he means that the word fell in this example goes back to Middle English.
DEAN: Why don’t we just bring [Lorelai] something out?
RORY: No. She and Luke have been in this fight for too long, she’s gotta do this.
DEAN: You’re cruel.
RORY: Tough love, baby.
Tough love is the act of treating a person harshly or sternly with the intent to help them in the long run. It is thought that the phrase originated with the 1968 book Tough Love by Christian community activist Bill Milliken, who worked with at-risk youth to keep them engaged with the education system.
Dean describing Rory as “cruel” seems quite apt, considering the dishonest basis of their relationship at this point.
LORELAI: Why did you go to New York?
RORY: To see Jess.
LORELAI: Boy, do you know how to bury the lede.
Bury the lede is an American phrase meaning “to hide the most important or most relevant part of a story within distracting information”.
The phrase comes from journalism, where the lede is the introductory part of a story which is meant to entice the reader to continue with the full story. It’s said that it is spelt “lede” rather than “lead” because the second spelling could be confused with the word “lead”, as in the lead metal in old-fashioned printing presses. Others think it was just to sound old-timey and romantic, and believe it to be an affectation. These people usually spell it “bury the lead”.
The phrase seems to date to the 1970s, but wasn’t included in dictionaries until 2008.
RORY: Please help me out tonight – no mention of work or Chilton or school or retirement.
LORELAI: Nothing but politics and religion, got it.
A joking reference to the old saying never to discuss politics or religion in company, as these topics can lead to some heated arguments. Lorelai means that these supposedly contentious subjects are far preferable to discussing work, school, or retirement with Richard.
PARIS: Okay, I swept the room and I have to tell you, all sad. I think we’re a lock.
RORY: Really? I actually thought the locker alarm was pretty good.
“We’re a lock”, American slang meaning “we’re a sure thing, we’ve got this”. It seems to originate from American football, and to date to the 1980s.
Rory seems to have a much more realistic idea of their chances of winning than Paris does, although she looks pretty confident as well.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 