I’m not really your uncle, but I have often wondered where this saying originated.

[More:]

The catchphrase has been around for a while in the UK and the Commonwealth. Normally its use demonstrates how simple it is to do something – switch the computer on, press start and Bob’s your uncle; if only it was as easy as that.

We’ve all heard the fairly recent stories of political nepotism, with MP’s sons rewarded for work they didn’t do.

One theory of the source of Bob’s your uncle stems from the appointment by Lord Salisbury (Robert Cecil), when he was prime minister, of his nephew Arthur Balfour to a series of posts. In 1857 Balfour was appointed as chief secretary of Ireland, a post to which many thought he was particularly unsuited. This led to the irreverent saying that to have Bob for your uncle was a guarantee of success, hence the expression. The word ‘nepotism’ derives from the Italian for nephew arising from the popes giving preferment to their nephews, euphemisms for their bastard sons, so perhaps the expression is rather apt. Nevertheless Balfour’s success in Ireland silenced his critics somewhat and he even rose to be prime minister himself in 1902.

However there is a problem with this theory as the phrase does not appear in print until 1937 in Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Although there were suggestions that it had been in use since the 1890s, apparently no-one has found an example in print – not even in Punch, the satirical magazine.

Then there is the suggestion that it derived from the slang phrase ‘all is bob,’ meaning everything is safe, pleasant or satisfactory. This dates from the seventeenth century and appears in Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1785.

Other slang phrases including ‘bob’ were associate with thievery or gambling. In the 18th century ‘bob’ was generic name for someone who didn’t know.

Perhaps that’s why I am left wondering.

[PS: Has anyone any suggestions for ‘Fanny’s your aunt!’]