You are X and I claim my five pounds
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You are X and I claim my five pounds (commonly abbreviated to YA X AICMFP, or YA X AICM£5) is a British stock phrase commonly used in online discussion forums such as Usenet. The phrase is supposedly used to reveal a poster's secret identity, but in practice it is used ironically to make a humorous comparison between the poster and another person, either a third person who frequents the same forum or a celebrity.
The phrase occasionally mutates thematically to "...my five euros", "dollars", etc.
Origins of the phrase
In the 1930s, a group of British newspapers including the Daily Mirror, the Westminster Gazette and the News Chronicle held independent competitions as publicity stunts. The papers hired people to walk around a particular town on a certain day; on that day, the newspaper would print details of the town, the agent's name and likeness, and a particular pass phrase: "You are (name) and I claim my five pounds." (The names of the agents are often given as Mr. Chalky White or Mr. Lobby Ludd.) If a reader who recognised the agent from this description approached him carrying the relevant newspaper and spoke the pass phrase, the agent would hand the reader this amount of cash. Such campaigns were run until the 1960s, frequently in summer in coastal towns. Holidaymakers would be less likely to buy a newspaper, and since claimants for the prize had to have a copy of the newspaper, the newspaper proprietors hoped the prizes would increase circulation.
This competition is used as a plot device in Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock, where the agent's pseudonym is Colley Cibber (the name of an 18th-century English actor, playwright, theatre manager, and poet laureate).
External links
- Google Usenet searches: "and I claim my five pounds" (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22and+I+claim+my+five+pounds%22&scoring=d), "AICMFP" (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=AICMFP&scoring=d)
- Some citations of discussions on the origin of the phrase (http://www.hexkey.co.uk/lee/log/?b=2002-04-03)
- A personal history (http://www.ean.co.uk/Bygones/History/Article/Aussie_Arthur/html/lobby_lud_1938.htm)