Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch

I heard this phrase the other day, and couldn’t get it out of my head for some reason. So I did what any sensible person would do - I went down a rabbit hole of Google searches and Reddit/Quora posts to try to work out where it came from.

Really? That’s just a me thing?

Oh well.

What Does “Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch” Mean?

It’s a cheeky way to remember the movements of the sign of the cross: forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder. The words point roughly to those four places. Roughly is doing some work here.

You might also hear it used as a leaving-the-house checklist (including, presumably, “don’t leave your manhood behind when you go out to face the world”). And presumably that would include “phone” these days…

But in its best-known form, it’s a cheeky little rhyme to remember the sign of the cross. Rhymes are easy to remember, and the cheekier a memory trick is, the harder it is to forget.

The Nuns on the Run Scene

In the 1990 comedy Nuns on the Run, the two crooks (played by Monty Python alum Eric Idle and a pre-Hagrid Robbie Coltrane) are disguising themselves as nuns to escape the fellow crooks they’ve betrayed. Coltrane’s character has to show the non-Catholic Idle how to cross himself, and he repeats the rhyme, one word at each point. Being crooks disguised as nuns gives the lesson some urgency.

It’s the earliest movie use we know of, and it’s turned up since in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (2008). But there’s a printed example from sixteen years before Nuns on the Run, too.

Spectacles

This one’s easy. The gesture starts with a touch to the forehead, and your glasses sit right there (or would, if you wore them). Close enough.

Next…

Testicles

Remember what we said about cheeky memory tricks? Hard to forget this one, and that’s why the whole rhyme sticks.

Aren’t you glad this is the image we chose?

This one is not so accurate. The next touch is to the lower chest, never as low as the crotch, but the rhyme is what we’re going for. Hopefully you remember not to go any further if you’re the unfortunate Eric Idle trying to remember the sequence.

It’ll do.

For the actual gesture, this Catholic parish’s illustrated instructions show forehead, chest, left shoulder, then right shoulder. Other Christian traditions have variations.

Wallet

Not surprising that this is where we come in!

If a man puts his wallet in a jacket pocket, he’ll usually use his dominant hand and reach across his body. Since most people are right-handed, that means the left inside pocket. And the left side of the chest is the next point of the cross - perfect.

Well, sort of. Most people carry much smaller wallets these days. And with good reason: if you’re not putting your wallet in a jacket, you should slim it down and carry it in a front pants pocket. But a long wallet in a blazer still fits the picture nicely.

Watch

Watch?

Woah, hold on there. How does touching the right side of your chest translate to “watch”?

Think back. What did people use to check the time before phones? Wristwatches. OK, OK, but before wristwatches? You got it - pocket watches, often worn in a vest (waistcoat) pocket.

This is the least solid of the four. A right-handed man would usually keep a pocket watch on the left, same as the wallet, but the rhyme puts it on the right. The best I can come up with is that you’d wear the watch opposite the wallet for balance. It doesn’t really matter, though: there are only four points, so once you’ve done the first three it’s obvious which one is left.

Where Did the Rhyme Originate?

The phrase was in print before the movie. The Open British National Bibliography records Tim Longville’s poetry book Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, published by GR/EW Books in 1974. The title is a dated use of the rhyme, rather than a credit for inventing it.

There are also memories of it circulating as a joke. In a 2004 discussion, Bob recalled hearing a parachuting-rabbi version around 1965: what looks like crossing oneself is actually a check that the essentials are still there. In his household, it became a leaving-the-house checklist.

So the phrase has two closely related uses: a comic memory aid for crossing yourself, and a pocket-check joke. Nobody knows who came up with it. Our best guess (drum roll please)? It’s an old schoolboy ditty. Plenty of us remember cheeky rhymes from our schooldays (and would probably prefer to forget some of them), and if I had to bet, I’d say a British or Irish Catholic school.

OK, that’s quite enough digging for a random Sunday! I really must get a hobby …

Before You Go …

Hope you enjoyed that little bit of digging! While we’re on the subject of sayings, be sure to check out our best wallet quotes. Or, if the wallet part brought you here, try what’s in your wallet?