‘couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding’: meaning and origin
1910—used of a weakling, or of someone or something that is ineffectual—may have originated in Yorkshire, a county of northern England
Read MoreCategory: etymology
‘couldn’t punch a hole in a wet Echo’: meaning and origin
UK, 1954—used of a weakling or of an ineffectual person—‘Echo’ refers to the Liverpool Echo, a newspaper published in Liverpool, England—but perhaps refers, on one occasion, to the South Wales Echo, published in Cardiff, Wales
Read More‘glad and sorry’ (i.e., hire purchase)
UK, 1929—‘glad and sorry’ denotes hire purchase, i.e., a system by which one pays for a thing in regular instalments while having the use of it—the image is that the hire-purchaser is at the same time glad to have the use of the merchandise and sorry to still have to pay for it
Read More‘Kathleen Mavourneen’: meaning and origin
used attributively of something that may not have an end for years, if ever—especially used of a loan that the borrower refuses to pay back, and of hire purchase—refers to the line “It may be for years, and it may be for ever” in the song ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ (1835)
Read More‘half seas over’: meanings and origin
literal meaning (1551): halfway across the sea—figurative meanings (1692): halfway towards a goal or destination, half through with a matter, halfway between one state and another—also (1699): half drunk
Read More‘jam butty’ (police patrol car)
UK, 1971—‘jam butty’ (also ‘jam sandwich’): a colloquial appellation for a police patrol car having a red stripe painted on a white background
Read More‘Paris syndrome’: meaning and origin
1992—the culture shock experienced by an individual (typically a Japanese) who, when visiting, or living in, Paris, realises that this city does not fulfil their idealised expectations—apparently a loan translation from Japanese ‘Pari shōkōgun’, coined by Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Ōta
Read More‘knuckle-sandwich’ | ‘knuckle-butty’: meanings and origin
‘knuckle-sandwich’ USA, 1940—‘knuckle-butty’ UK, 1972—a punch to the mouth (or to the stomach)—the image is of a sandwich of knuckles being forced into the mouth (or into the stomach) of the person who is punched
Read More‘Liverpool pantile’: meaning and origin
UK, 1870—a very hard ship’s biscuit—refers to the fact that these sea-biscuits were particularly carried by Liverpool merchant ships; likens the shape and hardness of these sea-biscuits to those of pantiles, i.e. roofing tiles curved to an ogee shape
Read More‘fang-farrier’: meaning and origin
a dentist—World War Two—slang of the British armed forces—was soon adopted into (and came to be regarded as) Australian English—earlier synonyms: ‘fang-faker’ and ‘fang-wrencher’
Read More
word histories 