“Ad fontes!”
Australia, 1996—a day spent in bed in order to restore one’s spirits; an unscheduled extra day’s leave from work, taken to alleviate stress or pressure and sanctioned by one’s employer—from ‘Doona’, a proprietary name for an eiderdown or duvet, hence a generic term for any eiderdown or duvet
Read MoreAustralia, 1944—the customary bout of hasty drinking in public houses at the end of the working day, occasioned by the former six-o’clock-closing regulations
Read MoreAustralia, 1937—very scarce—‘rocking horse’: a toy horse mounted on rockers or springs for a child to sit on and rock to and fro—this phrase has come to be also used in British English and American English
Read MoreUSA, late 19th century—these phrases a) express mild remonstrance towards a person who has left a door open, exposing others to a draft; b) indicate that a person is behaving in a rude or uncouth manner
Read MoreAustralia, 1825—liquor sold without a licence—here, the adjective ‘sly’ means ‘secret’, ‘covert’, ‘clandestine’
Read More1890s—to use extravagant words or language not substantiated by fact; to talk nonsense—occurs in particular in stories by the British authors Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975)
Read MoreAustralia—a controversial current-affairs topic—the image is that such a topic is likely to interrupt a barbecue with loud debate—coined in 2001 by the Australian Prime Minister John Howard during his re-election campaign
Read MoreAustralia, 1982—a coded signal from a man to other men, indicating that a woman is approaching, so that they all moderate their language—originally used in shearing sheds, but now used in other places, especially in pubs
Read MoreAustralia, 1986—a man’s protruding belly—‘verandah’ denotes an open-sided roofed structure over a shop—in this phrase, ‘toy shop’ denotes the male genitals
Read MoreAustralia, 1979—to lose one’s temper or composure; to give up contesting or participating—the image is of a baby spitting out its dummy in a tantrum
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