I'm shakin' it, boss..
-ron (cool hand) o.
later that same evening:
amusingly, Sir James actually got kind of testy about this; hark:
[First in 16th c.: of unknown origin. Prob. a word of colloquial or even slang character, which rose into literary use; many terms of similar meaning have had such an origin; cf. pother, row, rumpus, dirdum, shindy, hubbub, hurly-burly, etc.
The conjectures that coil may be ‘related’ to Gael. coileid (kolet) ‘stir, movement, noise’, or to goilim (golm) ‘I boil’, goileadh, ‘boiling’, or to goill (go) ‘shield, war, fight’, are mere random ‘shots’, without any justification, phonetic or historical. Coil is unknown in Scotland, and no evidence connects it with Ireland. Gaelic or Irish words do not enter English through the air, with phonetic change on the way!]
1. Noisy disturbance, ‘row’; ‘tumult, turmoil, bustle, stir, hurry, confusion’ (J.).
1567 DRANT Horace Epist. II. ii. Hiij, Againe, thinckes thou that I at Rome my vearses can indyte Mongst so much toyle, and such a coyle, suche soking carke, and spyte. 1589 R. HARVEY Pl. Perc. (1860) 30 Such a quoile, with pro and con such vrging of Ergoes. 1590 SHAKES. Com. Err. III. i. 48 What a coile is there Dromio? who are those at the gate? 1608 L. MACHIN Dumb Knt. I. i, If my husband should rise from his study, and misse me, we should have such a coile! 1610 B. JONSON Alch. V. iv, Did you not heare the coyle About the dore? 1676 E. BURY Medit. 375 Many great men which..make a great coil, and keep a great stir and bustle in the world. 1728 SWIFT Mullinix & T., But tell me, Tim, upon the spot, By all this coil what hast thou got? 1860 T. MARTIN tr. Horace 208 What means this coil? And wherefore be These cruel looks all bent on me? 1884 HOLLAND Cheshire Gloss., Coil, row.
2. Confused noise of inanimate things; clutter, rattle, confused din.
1582 MUNDAY Eng. Rom. Life in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) II. 201 There was such a coyle among the old iron, such ratling and throwing downe the boordes..that I laye almost feared out of my wits. 1633 T. ADAMS Exp. 2 Peter iii. 3 (1865) 617 But put water to fire, and then you have a thundering coil. 1816 L. HUNT Rimini I. 11 You may hear a coil Of bubbling springs about the grassier soil.
3. Fuss, ado; a ‘business’.
1593 DRAYTON Idea 262 You Will, and Will not, what a coyle is here? 1595 SHAKES. John II. i. 165, I am not worth this coyle that's made for me. 1613 WITHER Abuses Stript & Whipt II. i. Vanity, They might foyle The party faulty e'en with half that quoyle. 1640 GENT Knave in Gr. I. i, I was extream drunke, aske my man Fub else, he'le tell you what a coyle he had with me. 1652 CULPEPPER Eng. Physic. 255 Physicians make more a quoil than needs behalf about Electuaries. 1692 HACKET Abp. Williams II. 45 What a coil hath been made to set up consisteries of ministers and ruling elders! 1861 READE Cloister & H. I. 303 Who makes the coil about nothing now? 1877 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Coil, fuss, bustle.
4. a. to keep a coil: to keep up a disturbance; make a fuss, bustle, much ado.
1568 T. HOWELL Newe Sonets (1879) 147 Dyd flee from fredom to the courte, Where Venus only keepes the coyle. 1577 HOLINSHED Chron. II. 743 They kept such a coile against the abbat and moonks, to have certeine ancient charters delivered them. 1587 GOLDING De Mornay ix. (1617) 140 Proclus and Simplicius keepe a great coyle in maintenance of the eternity of the world. 1611 COTGR., Grabuger, to keepe a foule coyle, to make a great stirre, or monstrous hurlyburly. 1669 SHADWELL Royal Sheph. V. Wks. 1720 I. 295 They all keep such a coile, when they come to die. 1748 THOMSON Cast. Indol. I. 35 Still a coil the grasshopper did keep. 1807 CRABBE Par. Reg. III. 904 And such sad coil with words of vengeance kept, That our best sleepers started as they slept.
b. mortal coil: the bustle or turmoil of this mortal life. A Shaksperian expression which has become a current phrase.
1602 SHAKES. Ham. III. i. 67 What dreames may come, When we haue shufflel'd off this mortall coile, Must giue vs pawse. a1764 CHURCHILL Poems, Journey II. 8 When the Night Suspends this mortal coil. 1814 SCOTT Ld. of Isles, I. Introd., Where rest from mortal coil the mighty of the Isles. 1829 I. TAYLOR Enthus. V. (1867) 108 The Christian..has waited in the coil of mortality only for the moment when he should inspire the ether of the upper world.
