“ad fontes!”
used of a person who is incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.—Australian politics, 1945, as a comment on Robert Gordon Menzies, generally ascribed to William Morris Hughes
Read MoreAustralia—‘charity dame’ 1949—‘charity moll’ 1962—an amateur prostitute who charges less than the usual rate—from ‘Moll’, pet form of the female forename ‘Mary’, the noun ‘moll’ has long been used to designate a prostitute
Read Moreout of one’s mind, extremely annoyed—Australia, 1900; New Zealand, 1907—originally as ‘(as) mad as a snake’, ‘(as) mad as snakes’ and variants—later as ‘(as) mad as a cut snake’
Read MoreUSA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’
Read Moreleft-handed: ‘molly-handed’, ‘mauldy’, ‘molly-dooked’—a left-handed person: ‘molly-hander’, ‘mauldy’, ‘molly-dook’—‘molly’ and ‘mauldy’ may derive from ‘mauley’, denoting the hand or fist; ‘dook’ is ‘duke’, denoting the hand or fist
Read MoreUSA, 1957, teenagers’ slang—to worry about trivial, insignificant matters—usually as ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’, said as reproof or consolation
Read Moremeans ‘backwards’, also ‘reluctantly’—USA, 1865—of unknown origin—allegedly borrowed from Irish English, but nothing seems to support this allegation
Read Morea chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a ghoulish fascination for observers—UK, 1980, as ‘like viewing a car crash in slow motion’—USA, 1991, used without ‘like’ by George Colony, president of Forrester Research
Read MoreAustralia, 1885; New Zealand, 1894—indicates that a person is suffering from bad luck—the implication is that this bad luck is punishment for a crime committed by the person
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Australia, 1954—derogatory nickname for the metal eagle at the top of the Australian-American Memorial in Canberra—alludes to the fact that, from a distance, the eagle’s upswept wings look like a rabbit’s ears
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word histories 