“ad fontes!”
USA, 1937—informative material presented in an entertaining way at working-meetings (and later at other types of gatherings) organised by Shell Oil Company—a blend of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’
Read MoreAustralia, 1890: an analysis of the state of the weather at sea—UK, 1926: the BBC-radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
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a charwoman, a cleaning lady—UK, 1940—popularised in 1942 by the charwoman’s name in the BBC radio comedy series ‘It’s That Man Again’
Read Moreconventionally middle-class—UK, 1953—from ‘Mrs Dale’, the name of a conventional middle-class woman in Mrs Dale’s Diary, a BBC radio serial broadcast from 1948 to 1969
Read Morea bad-tempered, sullen person—UK, 1981—here, the noun ‘drawers’ means ‘underpants’
Read MoreUSA, 1982—characteristic, reminiscent or imitative of the films or television work of the U.S. filmmaker David Lynch (1946-2025)—also ‘Lynchean’, ‘David-Lynchian’ and ‘David-Lynchean’
Read Moreone is no longer rational or sane—USA, 1983
Read More1973: a woman who works as a hired killer—hence, 1975: a woman who carries out a particular task effectively and ruthlessly—coined after ‘hitman’
Read Moreimpressively or shockingly big—a blend of ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’—apparently coined by Welsh novelist Berta Ruck in Wedding March (1938)
Read Moreto urinate—slang—2nd half of the 20th century—based on the sound /eɪn/, common to the verb, adjective and noun that compose it—‘main vein’ probably refers to the penis
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word histories 