Barkis is willin'

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English

Cover of Puck magazine, dated October 3 1883, with a cartoon by Bernhard Gillam captioned "Barkis is willin'"

Etymology

A reference to Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield, in which the phrase is used by Mr Barkis to hint that he wishes to marry Clara Peggotty.

Phrase

Barkis is willin' (dated, colloquial, humorous)

  1. Somebody has a sweetheart they wish to marry.
    • 1862, Anthony Trollope, The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson:
      If Barkis is willing, then a certain gentleman as we know in the meat trade may suit himself elsewhere. Come; answer that. Is Barkis willing?
    • 1877, Emma Jane Worboise, “The New Evangeline”, in The Grey House at Endlestone, London: James Clarke and Co., ; Hodder and Stoughton, , →OCLC, page 480:
      And another asked me if I had come to get a Canadian sweetheart; and a third, one of the impudentest, most conceitedest fellows I ever did set eyes upon, nudged me, so that I spilled my coffee all over my second-best damask-silk apron—the one with bugle fringe, you know, Miss Capel—and says he, ‘Is it a case of Barkis is willin’?’
  2. (by extension) Someone is amenable to a suggestion.
    • 1923 November 23, The Pressman, “Should Parliament be Broadcast?”, in Radio Times:
      So far as the B.B.C. is concerned it may be stated at once that the matter has not at the moment of writing even been discussed by the directors, so that it is impossible to state what is the policy of the company on the subject. But one would not be far out by saying "Barkis is willin'," if there is a widespread demand for it.

Alternative forms

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