"cook the accounts"

The use of this phrase is colloquial, typical of the comedy derived from the casual language in the libretto. The OED defines the word cook in the third sense of its verb form: "To present in a surreptitiously altered form, for some purpose; to manipulate, 'doctor', falsify, tamper with."

This discussion is based on the definition of the word cook in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.

To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.

To the homepage of this Mikado website.

Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.

(c) Copyright 1998 Sharon Cogdill, dramaturg for this production and author of this website.

College of Fine Arts and Humanities

St. Cloud State University

This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/cookaccounts.html.

Last update: 18 May 1998.