I’m reading the book called Far & Away written by Andrew Solomon and i see there is a sentence like below.
Her sharpest reprimand was the occasional “Gently, Bentley!”.
Any idea, what exact meaning, when exactly we can use it.
Answer
See the BBC’s The Joy of Slang, which explicitly defines the phrase as meaning to slow down:
My mother’s frequent request to slow down, gently Bentley, is much later, from the perhaps equally forgotten Australian comedian, Dick Bentley, in the 1950s.
To be more specific, “Gently, Bentley” was a catchphrase
of the post-WWII BBC radio show called Take It From Here, which starred the Australian comedians Dick Bentley and Joy Nichols, as well as Jimmy Edwards, who later had a series with that title. As such it entered the “pop culture” of British English.
Its use in the book seems to be an extension of the “reprimand” to slow down. The repeated sound -ently and the word gently perhaps lend weight to the idea that it’s a mild, i.e., gentle reprimand. On the catchphrase see obituary for Dick Bentley in the The Independent.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Venkat.R , Answer Author : Arm the good guys in America
