‘not to be just a pretty face’: meaning and early occurrences
to have qualities other than mere attractiveness, especially intelligence—UK, 1955—paradoxically, in early use, often employed in a sexist manner
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‘simples’: meaning and origin
interjection used to suggest that something can be done or understood with no difficulty—UK, 2009—from the catchword uttered by Aleksandr Orlov, an animated Russian meerkat, in a television advertising campaign for comparethemarket.com
Read More‘Kensington Gore’ (as applied to artificial blood)
UK, 1971—a pun on ‘Kensington Gore’, the name of a thoroughfare in London, and on the noun ‘gore’, denoting blood shed from a wound—it is unclear whether ‘Kensington Gore’ (as applied to artificial blood) was originally a trademark
Read More‘mockumentary’: meaning and early occurrences
denotes a film, television programme, etc., which adopts the form of a serious documentary in order to satirise its subject—apparently first used (and perhaps coined) in 1952 by the Canadian television producer Ross McLean
Read More‘bothsideism’ | ‘bothsidesism’: meanings and early occurrences
USA, 1974—the news media’s practice of giving credence to the other side of an opinion or action in order to seem fair, even though that other side is objectionable
Read More‘a long streak of pelican shit’: meaning and origin
a tall person—Australia, 1968, in the stage play Norm and Ahmed, by Alexander Buzo—gained currency from occurring in the film Gallipoli (1981), scripted by David Williamson
Read More‘soapedy’: meaning and origin
a television programme or cinema film exhibiting qualities of both drama and comedy—USA, 1998—blend of ‘soap (opera)’, or of ‘soaper’, and of ‘comedy’—coined on various occasions by different persons, independently from one another
Read More‘to bang like a dunny door’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia—also ‘to bang like a shithouse door’—used of an exceptional sexual partner—plays on two meanings of the verb ‘bang’: ‘to make a loud noise’ and ‘to have sexual intercourse’
Read More‘may your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down’
Australia, 1972—a jocular curse—the Australian National Dictionary Centre explains that this phrase “recalls an earlier time when many Australians kept chooks (domestic chickens) in the backyard and the dunny was a separate outhouse”
Read More‘Aunt’ | ‘Granny’: The Sydney Morning Herald
‘Aunt’ (1842) and ‘Granny’ (1851)—nicknames for The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales), with reference to its conservativism—‘Granny’ has come to be used affectionately
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