“ad fontes!”
UK—2008 ‘fatberg’, after ‘iceberg’: a large mass of fat and waste material in a sewerage system—originally a large lump of congealed cooking fat washed up on a beach—2019 ‘concreteberg’, after ‘fatberg’: a large mass of concrete in a sewerage system, consisting of cement that has been poured down a drain
Read More
USA, 1898—a view as seen from below or from a humble position—refers to a view taken as from the standpoint of a worm, i.e. from ground-level—coined after ‘bird’s-eye view’ (1782), denoting a view of a landscape from above, such as is presented to the eye of a bird
Read More
refers to “All right, have it your own way—you heard a seal bark”, the caption to a drawing by James Thurber, originally published in The New Yorker of 30th January 1932
Read More
used of images suggestive of real or imaginary events—UK and USA early 1900s: popularised by its use as an advertising slogan for Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills
Read More
USA, 1902—jocularly used to justify the necessity of taking another alcoholic drink—Irish variant (1947): ‘a bird never flew on one wing’
Read More
“half a moment, Kaiser!”—1914 as the caption to a drawing by Bert Thomas, published in the Weekly Dispatch (London) to advertise a tobacco fund for soldiers
Read More
coined by the English playwright Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) in the preface to Volume 2 of ‘The Collected Plays of Terence Rattigan’ (1953)
Read More
UK, 18th and 19th centuries—‘trunkmaker’ was often employed with allusion to the use of the sheets of unsaleable books for trunk-linings
Read More
UK, 1913—industrial mills—working places characterised by dehumanising forms of labour—from ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, by the English poet William Blake
Read Moree.g. ‘one eye at St. Paul’s and the other at Charing-cross’, ‘un œil aux champs et l’autre à la ville’ (one eye at the fields and the other at the town)
Read More
