how's your father

English

Etymology

how +‎ is +‎ your +‎ father. A popular catchphrase of the 1910s popularised by music-hall entertainer Harry Tate, who used it for comic effect to change the subject away from one about which his character was ignorant (hence sense 1) or a taboo subject (hence sense 2).

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

how's your father (countable and uncountable, plural how's your fathers)

1. (countable, slang, British) A whatsit; a thing which the speaker is unable or unwilling to specify more precisely.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:thingy

2. (uncountable, slang, British, euphemistic) Sexual intercourse.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sexual intercourse

   I popped round Mary's for a bit of how's your father.

   • 2002, Ben Elton, High Society, Random House, published 2012, →ISBN, page 226:

     I mean what a buzz, man, me four fans, an’ I'm on the fookin’ telly! They love it! So suddenly it's knickers off and ’ow's your father.

Quotations

• 2012, Christopher McShane, The Adventure‎^[1], page 76:

  [A group of witches has encountered a group of wizards.]
  Then the thinnest, frailest witch of them all [...] said, "Maybe they're all lost and afraid and everything, and looking for the right whatsname – thingy, how's your father dearie."
  "I'll give them how's your father," spoke the elder witch once again. She thought about this for a moment then, suddenly realising the implication, added, "No, well, what I mean is, I'll be givin' them somethin' they won't be expecting, somethin' foul and nasty and not in the least bit to do with the other, as some might have occasion to call it. I wasn't sayin' that I was goin' to rummage with the old toilet essentials, if that's what you're thinking."