‘not worth a crumpet’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia, 1944—utterly worthless—one of the phrases built on the pattern ‘not worth a —’, such as ‘not worth a tinker’s curse’
Read More“Ad fontes!”
Australia, 1944—utterly worthless—one of the phrases built on the pattern ‘not worth a —’, such as ‘not worth a tinker’s curse’
Read More1942—an arena of fierce or ruthless rivalry—borrowed from French: literally ‘basket of crabs’—the image is of crabs fighting, if not devouring one another, when kept in a basket
Read MoreUK—1969: a type of collapsible trolley designed for use in the home—1970: a thing whose name the speaker cannot remember, does not know, or does not wish to mention—perhaps from ‘oojah’, ‘-ma-’ in nouns such as ‘thingamabob’, and the verb ‘flip’
Read Morefine, all right—UK, 1923 (perhaps coined by P. G. Wodehouse)—perhaps an alteration of ‘oojah capivvy’ after ‘cum’ and ‘spiffy’
Read MoreUK, 1917—used when one cannot think of, or does not wish to use, the name of a thing; by extension, a useful implement, a gadget—origin unknown
Read Morealso ‘Christmas grip’—Australia, prison slang, 1953—a grabbing of another’s testicles—based on the image is of a handful of nuts, alludes to ‘nut’, denoting a dry fruit consisting of an edible kernel enclosed in a hard or leathery shell, and a testicle
Read MoreAustralia, 1930—when used negatively, means ‘far away from’; when used affirmatively, means ‘not too far away from’—refers to the fact that a roaring bull can be heard over a great distance
Read MoreAustralia—a promiscuous male—coined in 1983, during a parliamentary debate, by Michael Hodgman, then Member of the Australian House of Representatives, to describe Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia
Read MoreAustralia, 1954—extremely ugly; extremely tired—the noun ‘sandshoe’ denotes a light canvas shoe with a rubber sole
Read MoreNew Zealand, 1885; Australia, 1897—to make a good impression on a person, to ingratiate oneself, to improve one’s position—refers to the children’s game of marbles
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