“ad fontes!”
Australia, 1976—used by Aborigines to depreciatively designate unemployment or welfare benefits—‘sit-down’ means: performed or obtained while sitting down, with the implication that no or few efforts are required
Read MoreAustralia, 1932: to attract unwelcome attention or criticism—originally, WWI slang: to draw artillery fire from the enemy, in reference to crab shells, used with punning allusion to artillery shells
Read MoreAustralia—in Australian Rules football: used as a call to discourage or distract a player in a rival team attempting to kick for goal—more widely: used to deride a person or organisation deemed to be performing poorly, or to wish someone bad luck—‘chewy’ = ‘chewing gum’
Read MoreAustralia, 1953—to flatter someone or to (seek to) ingratiate oneself with someone, to curry favour with someone—cf. 19th-century British phrase ‘to piss down someone’s back’ (to flatter someone)
Read MoreAustralia, 1925—a section of Sussex Street, on the Sydney waterfront, along which, in the 1920s and 1930s, unemployed wharf-labourers trudged, waiting to be handpicked for the few available jobs
Read Morehumorous variant of ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’—USA, 1929—refers to the phrase ‘the law of the Medes and Persians’, denoting something which cannot be altered
Read MoreAustralia, 1846—the name of a coarse green tea drunk in the bush—this name referred to the colour of this tea and to its awful taste
Read MoreAustralia & New Zealand, early 1970s—‘Pommy’: a British immigrant to Australia or New Zealand; a British (especially an English) person—‘-bashing’: the activity of abusing or attacking the people mentioned just because they belong to a particular group or community
Read MoreAustralia, 1974—a radical British shop steward in an Australian trade union—‘Pommy’ designates a British immigrant to Australia, also a British (especially an English) person
Read MoreAustralia, 1962—an immigrant from Britain who complains about Australia—‘Pommy’: apparently a shortening of ‘pomegranate’, used to designate an immigrant from Britain
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word histories 