origin of ‘castles in Spain’ and ‘castles in the air’
In French medieval chansons de geste ‘castles in Spain’ denoted fiefs that had to be conquered from the Saracens by the knights to whom they had been granted.
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origin of ‘once in a blue moon’
‘Once in a blue moon’ is a development from ‘once in a moon’, meaning ‘once a month’, hence ‘occasionally’—‘blue’ is merely a meaningless fanciful intensive.
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘quiz’ (“Vir bonus est quis?”)
Originally meaning ‘person of ridiculous appearance’, ‘quiz’ (students’ slang, late 18th century) was jocularly derived from the Latin interrogative pronoun ‘quis’ in “Vir bonus est quis?” (“Who is a good man?)”—a good, ingenuous, harmless man being likely to become an object of ridicule or even of harassment.
Read Morethe nonsensical origin of ‘Kilkenny cats’
‘To fight like Kilkenny cats’ means ‘to engage in a mutually destructive struggle’.—from the tale of two cats fighting until only their tails remained (early 19th century), which was originally meant to be nothing but amusing nonsense.
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘a pretty kettle of fish’
The phrase ‘a pretty kettle of fish’ originally referred to a net full of fish, which, when drawn up with its contents, is suggestive of confusion, flurry and disorder—‘kettle’ being a form of ‘kiddle’, a noun denoting a dam or other barrier in a river, with an opening fitted with nets to catch fish.
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘to rain cats and dogs’
First recorded circa 1629 as ‘to rain dogs and cats’, this phrase is based on a cat-and-dog fight as a metaphor for a storm or hard rain; the theory that Jonathan Swift coined the phrase is ludicrous.
Read Moreorigin of the Lancashire phrase ‘in Dicky’s meadow’
In the phrase ‘in Dicky’s meadow’, which means ‘in trouble’, the first element is an alteration of ‘dicky’, meaning ‘hazardous’, ‘critical’.
Read Morethe multiple meanings and origins of ‘P’s and Q’s’
Sexual puns in 17th-century English theatre explain several meanings of ‘P’s and Q’s’.
Read Moreorigin of ‘Indian summer’ and French ‘l’été sauvage’
In ‘Indian summer’, the adjective ‘Indian’ merely denotes something other than that normally denoted in Europe by the simple noun ‘summer’.
Read Morethe curious French equivalents of ‘window shopping’
‘window shopping’ (USA, 1875)—‘lèche-vitrine(s)’ (French, 1932) from ‘lécher’ (to lick) and ‘vitrine’ (shop window)—verb ‘crébilloner’ (Nantes only), from ‘rue Crébillon’
Read MoreHow Adolf Hitler popularised ‘heads will roll’ in 1930.
based on the notion of execution by beheading—popularised by a literal threat of executions made on 25th September 1930 by Adolf Hitler
Read Moreanother discussion about ‘Indian summer’
the problems with the “novel origin story for ‘Indian Summer’” put forward by Matthew R. Halley in Notes and Queries (September 2017)
Read Morethe Bloody Mary before the name existed
Unnamed cocktails consisting of vodka and tomato juice became fashionable in the 1930s before the name ‘Bloody Mary’ was coined in November 1939.
Read Moreorigin of ‘hatchet man’: a hired Chinese assassin
USA—‘hatchet man’ (1874): a hired Chinese assassin using a hatchet or cleaver—‘hatchet work’ (1895): a murder carried out by a hatchet man
Read More‘to give up the ghost’ (to breathe one’s last)
attested in the Later Version (1395) of the Wycliffe Bible—‘ghost’ means ‘the soul or spirit, as the principle of life’
Read Moreorigin of ‘avoirdupois’: goods sold by weight
from Old French and Anglo-Norman ‘aveir de peis’, ‘goods of weight’, as distinguished from the goods sold by measure or number
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘the ghost walks’
payday—UK, 1831, theatrical slang—from ‘Hamlet’, where Horatio asks the Ghost if he walks because he has “hoorded treasure in the wombe of earth”
Read More18th-century instances of ‘Indian summer’
18th-century instances of ‘Indian summer’ in addition to the earliest one—including a 1791 figurative use of the term
Read More‘everything in the garden is lovely’ (all is well)
appeared as a London catchphrase in 1897—not from the title and refrain of an 1898 song
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