22 February 2021
The phrase before you can say Jack Robinson means very quickly, in no time at all. But who was Jack Robinson, and how did his name become associated with speed?
The phrase doesn’t seem to be based on an actual person of that name. Rather, it appears to use a generic name for a man. Jack has been used to refer to a generic male since the fourteenth century, and Robinson is a common English surname. Nor does the phrase seem to have any particular story attached to it, although some have speculated without evidence as to that. It just seems to be a short, uncomplicated name that can be reeled off the tongue quickly.
The phrase makes its appearance in print in the Edinburgh Magazine of November 1762 in a letter describing the death of an officer in a naval battle:
I was sorry for the commodore of the castle, cause he was a brave fellow; a ball came aboard of him, under the larboard-side of his breast, and clapped a stopper upon his commission, before one could say Jack Robinson.
But lest one think that there could be naval origin to the phrase, there is this letter from a few months later in the London Magazine of January 1763 describing the latest fashion in women’s hairstyling:
You cannot but have taken notice, sir, you who are so universally conversant with the ladies, that of late, there appears to be an additional growth of hair on the heads (I say, Sir, on the heads) of such of our females as are commonly seen in places of public entertainment: there seems, since the present fashion, to be an additional quantity, both in front and rear. Now possibly you imagine this increase to be owing to some newly discovered pomatum, bear’s grease, or something of that sort. —No such thing. It is entirely owing to the French manner of Frizzlation. Perhaps you have no idea how this is performed. I’ll tell you, Sir,——Monsieur having, with an inimitable air of gentility, deposited his utensils on the table, and familiarly enquired after her ladyship’s health, begins his operation thus: he dextrously separates from the rest, six hairs near the crown of the head, twists them between his thumb and finger, rolls them up from the points to the root, and before you can say Jack Robinson, locks them fast in a square inch of paper. He then takes the next six hairs towards the front, papering them up in the same manner; and thus he proceeds in a strait line, from the crown of the head towards the nose, till he completes a file (to speak in the military phrase) of ten papers. He then gradually descends towards the right ear, which exactly completes a rank of 30 papers.
Clearly, the phrase had been established for some time before seeing its way into print. And it appears in a number of diverse places over the ensuing decades.
Sources:
“Another Letter of the Sailor from the Havannah.” Edinburgh Magazine, November 1762, 548. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. Jack Robinson, n.
London Magazine, January 1763, 32. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2018, s.v. Jack Robinson, n., Jack, n.2.