‘when push comes to shove’: meaning and origin
USA, 1889—when a situation reaches a critical point and one must commit oneself to an action or decision—the image is of having to shove when mere pushing is ineffective
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‘as Australian as meat pie’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1966—typically Australian in character—alteration of the phrase ‘as American as apple pie’, with reference to the prominence of meat pie in Australian diet
Read More‘to pop one’s clogs’: meaning and early occurrences
1914—the colloquial British-English phrase ‘to pop one’s clogs’ means ‘to die’—while ‘clog’ designates a shoe with a thick wooden sole, the acceptation of the verb ‘to pop’ is obscure
Read More‘Energizer bunny’: meaning and origin
USA, 1990—a persistent or indefatigable person or phenomenon—refers to ‘Energizer Bunny’, the name of a battery-operated toy rabbit represented as never running out of energy, featured from 1988 in a television advertising campaign for batteries
Read More‘pester power’: meaning and origin
USA, 1979—the children’s ability to pressurise their parents into buying something, or doing something for them, by continuing to ask for it until their parents agree to do it—originally referred to television advertising targeting children
Read Moremeaning and origin of the verb ‘MacGyver’
USA, 1992—to make or repair (something) in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand—also used figuratively—refers to Angus MacGyver, the lead character in the U.S. television series MacGyver (1985-92)
Read More‘if it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium’: meaning and origin
title of a CBS television documentary first broadcast in 1966—came to be used derogatorily of any fast package-tour—gave rise to the pattern ‘(if) it’s Tuesday, this (or it) must be ——’, used of travel anywhere
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘nothingburger’ and of ‘mouseburger’
‘nothingburger’: a person or thing of no importance, value or substance—‘mouseburger’: a young woman of unexceptional appearance and talents, regarded as timid, dowdy or mousy—from the use of ‘burger’ as the second element in compounds denoting types of hamburger
Read More‘car-crash television’: meaning and origin
television programmes that are gratuitously shocking or sensational, or of poor quality—from their eliciting in the viewer a similar horrified fascination to that experienced by people watching scenes of cars crashing
Read More‘the things I’ve done for England’: meaning and origin
conveys derisive self-congratulation for an action that the speaker has done from a sense of duty rather than for pleasure—from a line uttered by Charles Laughton in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII
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