“ad fontes!”
photograph: Farm Shop The noun mayonnaise denotes a thick, creamy sauce consisting of egg yolks emulsified with oil and seasoned, used as a cold dressing or accompaniment for salad, eggs, fish, etc., or as the base for other sauces. It is used in two French phrases: la mayonnaise prend, literally, the mayonnaise […]
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Eastern Vaudeville Bans Unseemly Slang A general order has been sent out from the Keith office to all Keith, Moss and Proctor vaudeville houses, instructing resident managers to hereafter bar the use by artists of the current slang phrases, “That’s the Cat’s Meow,” “Cat’s Pajamas,” “Hot Dog,” “Hot Cat,” etc. This means the phrases […]
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Another Pair Of Shoes Shoes are the most important of all accessories, and will make or mar a smart outfit. The group pictured above have crossed the Atlantic, and may be seen at Dolcis, 350, Oxford Street. Starting from the left is a light calf monk shoe with slit punching, a square toe, and […]
Read MoreThe noun marrowsky, which has also been spelt Marouski, Marowsky, morowski and mowrowsky, denotes a variety of slang, or a slip in speaking, characterised by the transposition of the initial letters or syllables of two words. The more usual term is spoonerism (cf. also malapropism and eggcorn). The word is first recorded in the verbal form Marrowskying in […]
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photograph of William Archibald Spooner in The Leeds Mercury (Yorkshire) of Monday 1st September 1930 There is a rather awkward moment in “An Italian Straw Hat” when Laurence Payne, as a young bridegroom, looking desperately into the auditorium of the Old Vic, cries: “The thick plottens!” Hearing this elementary Spoonerism, graver members of the […]
Read MoreThe word cheese is from Old English cēse, cȳse, of West-Germanic origin; it is related to its Dutch and German equivalents kaas and Käse respectively. Those words are ultimately derived from Latin caseus, cheese, which is also the origin of: – Spanish queso – Portuguese queijo – regional Italian cacio – Romanian: caș. Based on […]
Read MoreThe primary meaning of the humorous pseudo-French British-English expression nul points is: a score of zero points in the Eurovision Song Contest, in which the points awarded by each country are announced in both English and French. This expression is composed of: – the French adjective nul, meaning no (that is, not one); the choice of […]
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crossword in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury of 23rd January 1950 30 across: The cat’s mother? (3). The phrase who’s ‘she’—the cat’s mother? and variants are said to a person, especially a child, who uses the feminine third person singular pronoun impolitely or with inadequate reference. The earliest use of the phrase that I found is from The White […]
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image: nageur-sauveteur MEANINGS The noun starboard denotes the side of a ship or aircraft that is on the right when one is facing forward, while port denotes the opposing side. ORIGINS From the Germanic bases of the nouns steer and board, starboard, which appeared in Old English as steorbord, denotes literally the steer board, the steer side. This side of the ship […]
Read MoreThe proper name Guy is derived, via French, from the Old German Wido, either from wit, meaning wide, or from witu, wood. Wido has become Guy in French because in words of Germanic origin, when initial, the labio-velar approximant /w/ has regularly become the velar /g/. For instance, in the French noun loup-garou, the element garou corresponds to English werewolf—in fact, loup was added when the […]
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