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Seriously, i believe it is from British slang use of the work cracking and the phrase coming from repeated use since "ye olden times" of something being a "cracking tale" when ye olden folks told tales.
Cracking 1. Adj. Brilliant, wonderful. E.g."They gave a cracking performance last night and got a well deserved 5 minute standing ovation." 2. Adv. An intensifier such as extremely, outstandingly. E.g. "We had a cracking good time last night." I don't know the etymology.
Some Brit back me up, but ever since it seems to denote a certain well paced snap crackle and popping yarn of the likes that keeps one round the fire or awed at the pub.
Do we get to crack on brit slang again? i do like to take a take on figgerin' the codswallop.
misteraitch, i was being loose with the language in the "ye olden days" thing, but generally i find that phrases that one would find in literature from the 19th century on gets used as short hand allusions to ideas of as well as those phrases much in the way that, say, the characters in Deadwood spoke in an odd colloquialism, having learned it from books.
Cracking - meaning excellent is an early twentieth century invention.
Cracking - meaning boastful is a 16th to 17th century usage.
I'd give a bit of time to the latter for your etymology of the phrase "cracking yarn" or "cracking tale". A "boastful tale" sounds more likely to slip into popular usage than an "excellent tale", and it's more in keeping with the type of book that a "cracking good read", etc applies to.
i swear all that's what i said but i guess if i'm not going to be formal in my language while citing unimpeachable sources, i should retreat from view.
Note that cracking: to move quickly and cracker: a white person, may get their meaning from the sound a whip makes. I don't think that's relevant, but it shows what a complex word this is.
Christ, i just caught myself almost making a comment that coulda come straight out of the ass of the old jonmc--
thank god i don't drink that often, i officially need to attend to the self pitying curmudgeon within post haste--
It seems as though the last ten years have brought us a whole lot of Britishism in American colloquial speech. This isn't a phrase construction I ever heard growing up, but it is everywhere now, along with things like "went missing" and "at the end of the day."
Huh, I just found a glossary that mentioned that the phrase is heard in Wallace and Gromit. That might be all we need to figure out how it became popular in the US in the last few years.
In my mind, "cracking good read" falls into the same category as "ripping yarn." I've always assumed both phrases were British schoolboy usages possibly derived from WWI pilots' slang.
For that reason, both phrases always suggested to me that a book clipped along at a good pace and relied on a breathless Boys-Adventure tone, with lots of sudden ensnarements and narrow escapes. Sort of Indiana Jones meets Rudyard Kipling.
cmonkey, it seems that a lot of the reviews you've linked to are from UK sites (and this one from the Brainerd Dispatch is about a book called Crackers and Milk). Cracking is definitely a British term, as mentioned above. Why it may be proliferating reviews now is worrisome: Has there been some sort of resurgence of Kingsley Amis characters lately? I don't know why, but that word always makes me think of Lucky Jim, even though it's been years and I probably am remembering the old prof wrong. But a lot of the people I communicate with in the UK use cracking in their conversations, so what do I know.
I've been more weirded out by the fact that within the last few years, people say "Cheers" in America instead of "Thanks" or "Good bye". Not that's it's horrible, I just don't understand. Personally, I'd rather people brought "Gear" back to mean wonderful.
people say "Cheers" in America instead of "Thanks" or "Good bye".
*sheepishly* I picked this up from the bartenders at a trying-hard-to-be-British pub I used to frequent. It was pure affectation, but appealing, and it bled into my lexicon. I almost never actually say it, but I often catch myself just before it escapes.
Also, I'm a closeted pretentious Anglophile. So there's that.
That's another Britishism, yeah, sleepy pete. Thanks - my list grows apace. I'm betting "on holiday" will become more widespread soon as well - I already hear it creeping in here and there.
This one ('cracking good'), though, I'm totally ready to pin on Wallace and Gromit. The timing is right.
Literature, dammit, and pbs and so many other sources for these "Britishisms" as you are calling them, but i'm not one to be part of "common usage" or know what percentage of the gen pop is using these terms. But then writers perpetuate writers and are not usually culled from just any gen pop.
i shall return with more evidence if i can get something done, and sleep, before another metachat thing pulls me back in.
I'm betting "on holiday" will become more widespread soon as well
Hee! "On holiday" made the rounds of my social circle, and doubtless elsewhere, shortly after Chicken Run's theatrical release. Even a child of my acquaintance used the phrase to describe his family's impending week at the beach.
Was it David Foster Wallace who wrote that every creative writing program in the US was staffed by either an Iowa Writers Workshop grad or somebody who had been taught by one?
I'm unable to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure it comes from the crack of a whip, i.e. to get things started in an exciting rush. (From the Anglo-Saxon cracian to resound.) There's so many colloqualistic uses of the word "crack" that you may not be able to confirm this, cmonkey.
There's crack up (crazy), crack up (funny), not all it's cracked up to be, a cracking pace, take a crack at, crack down on something, wisecrack, fair crack at the whip, and crack the drug...
Incidentally, the word "cracker" used to refer to a white person is unrelated the whip; the myth that it refers to slavery in the US south is false. See also Shakespeare’s King John: "What cracker is this . . . that deafes our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?" (Thanks, Google!)
sleepy_pete: I've seen it all over amazon.com, it's not just a british review thing. And I recall wondering about this a few years ago (because it drives me fucking nuts to see it everywhere) but I haven't thought to ask the internet until now.
I guess I'll just blame anglophiles for using "cracking" and not bringing "boss" back into fashion.
Ok, my 2 cents... 'A cracking great read', or as Morrissey once said about Kirsty MacColl, "great songs and a cracking bust." If 'crack' is derived from the Celtic 'craic' (pronounced the same way), then it would mean (by extrapolation) 'something to really be talked about'. There's crack up (crazy), crack up (funny) - probably means 'in pieces' not all it's cracked up to be - not all it's been talked about. Doesn't live up to it's press. a cracking pace - again, amazing. Something to really talk about. take a crack at - not Celtic... apparently derived from slang. crack down on something - have a go at something, probably derived from the above. wisecrack - dunno, really. fair crack at the whip - again, a pretty good go at it. crack the drug...rockcocaine? mebbe?
Hmph. I thought cracking had to do with cracking the binding of the book 'cause you got excited about whatever you were reading and were a wee bit rough with the book.
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