"cut a dash"
In his Slang To-day and Yesterday, Eric Partridge defines "cut a dash" as "[t]o make a show, attract attention," usage which he says was recorded beginning in 1771 (Partridge 365). Pooh-Bah is saying that Ko-Ko and Yum-Yum will make quite a couple on their wedding day.
Like many of the "simple" old words in English, "cut" is actually quite complex. Sense 25, in the sixth group ("To shape, fashion, form, or make by cutting"), is the relevant sense:
"To perform or execute (an action, gesture, or display of a grotesque, striking, or notable kind): chiefly in certain established phrases, as to cut a CAPER, a DASH, a FIGURE, a JOKE, a VOLUNTARY .... Also To cut an antic, a curvet, a flourish ...."
This discussion is based in part on the definition of the word cut 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/cutdash.html.
Last update: 19 May 1998.