Grice on 'established idioms'

by JLS
for the GC

GRICE has commented on 'established idioms' and their implicatures or lack thereof, elsehwere -- and I may have provided the quote at the Grice Club or elsewhere of this specific collocation, an idiom being 'established'. This may relate to this query in today's World Wide Words as to the meaning of "up the creek". A querier was wondering if it could be 'naval' in origin, referring to the Naval Hospital in Haslar. Quinion rejects the claim, by quotinf from an American source which antedates the use of 'up the creek' and similar variants:

"He, Parker, then said, "well, our men put old Lincoln
up Shit creek, and we'll put old Dill up."
[Report of the US Secretary of War, 1868. This is from
the sworn testimony of the freeman Augustus Lorins about
the murder of Solomon G W Dill in South Carolina on 4
June 1868, only three years after President Lincoln's
assassination. Mr Dill had deeply offended his neighbours
by espousing the Republican cause in the reconstruction
period following the Civil War."

Quinion comments:

"There can be no doubt that "up shit creek" and "up the creek" are
both American in origin. As confirmation, neither can be found in
British sources of the nineteenth century, not even in verbatim
transcripts such as those of trials at the Old Bailey in London. So
the origins of "up the creek" can't be linked to Haslar."

Ah well.