"This is niminy-piminy petulance; I will not hear of it.

I utterly refuse to have that niminy-piminy blackguard on my quarterdeck,' said Jack.

It is they, I believe, who are mainly responsible for this crazy notion that the English have a niminy-piminy way of expressing themselves.

"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"

If it is to become a mealy-mouthed, niminy-piminy miss, sighing and languishingand flying up into the boughs at the slightest mention of anythinginteresting-!"

None of that niminy-piminy tax reduction on the middle class that Clinton and Bush are half-promising; the Marrou-Lord ticket would wipe out the income tax altogether - in stages, until voluntary financing of small government becomes a reality.

At this distance in time, I cannot pretend that I had my doubts about its merits: what I did dwell on was a certain psychological subtlety in retailing the author's love-life, though in terms which today would he considered ludicrously niminy-piminy.

Last week, when ABC's Charles Gibson asked Bill Clinton why he was supporting only niminy-piminy restrictions on guns, our current President, also with the freedom of a lame duck, replied testily: "Should people have to register guns like they register their cars?