“ad fontes!”
The proverbial phrase ‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’, and its many variants, are used of a person who is characterised by bad luck or by an inability to be organised or prepared.
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The adjective ‘sharp’ is colloquially used in the superlative, in various phrases of the form ‘not the sharpest —— in the ——’, indicating that a person is not very intelligent or perceptive, especially in comparison to others.
Read MoreUK, 1866—used as an observation, a reproof or a warning implying over-cleverness—plays on two meanings of the adjective ‘sharp’: a) literal meaning: ‘cutting’; b) figurative meaning: ‘keen-witted’
Read Morediarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—1915, British Army—the word ‘gyppy’ is from ‘gyp’ in ‘Egyptian’, and the suffix ‘-y’, used to form familiar diminutives
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 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 More1942—an arena of fierce or ruthless rivalry—borrowed from French: literally ‘basket of crabs’—the image is of crabs fighting, if not devouring one another, when kept in a basket
Read Morefine, all right—UK, 1923 (perhaps coined by P. G. Wodehouse)—perhaps an alteration of ‘oojah capivvy’ after ‘cum’ and ‘spiffy’
Read MoreUK, 1930—used of a man who pretends to be well-off despite having little money—the image is of a man of limited means who spends what he has on smart clothes, and therefore cannot afford any breakfast
Read MoreAustralia, 1893—refers to extreme thirst or to extreme dryness—popularised by the Australian short-story writer and balladist Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
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