‘bull in a china shop’ – ‘éléphant dans un magasin de porcelaine’
‘like a bull in a china shop’ (UK, 1802)—French equivalent with ‘elephant’ instead of ‘bull’ (1849)
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‘life in the fast lane’ and ‘Hotel California’, by the Eagles
Of American-English origin, the phrase life in the fast lane denotes a glamorous or highly pressured lifestyle. It refers to fast lane, meaning a traffic lane, usually that farthest from the outer edge of a motorway or dual carriageway, intended for drivers who wish to overtake slower cars. The earliest figurative use of fast lane […]
Read More‘everything in the garden is lovely’ (all is well)
appeared as a London catchphrase in 1897—not from the title and refrain of an 1898 song
Read Moremeaning, origin & history of ‘bob’s your uncle’
meaning: everything is or will turn out all right—Scotland, 1891—‘bob’ probably related to the adjectives ‘bob’ and ‘bobbish’, meaning ‘well, in good health and spirits’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Uncle Tom Cobley and all’
meaning: everybody imaginable—UK, 1898 in extended form, 1899 in current form—alludes to the names listed in the Devon ballad ‘Widdecombe Fair’
Read Moreadolescence: ‘the awkward age’ – ‘l’âge ingrat’
UK, 1832—‘the awkward age’: the adolescence, when one is no longer a child but not yet properly grown up, a time of life characterised by physical and emotional changes—translates in French as ‘l’âge ingrat’, ‘the thankless age’
Read Moremeaning and early instances of ‘same old, same old’
used to convey that something is unvaryingly familiar or drearily predictable—first recorded (USA, 1963) as the title of a song by Roger Kellaway, American jazz pianist and composer
Read Moreorigin of ‘to have, or to get, egg on one’s face’
USA, 1946—‘to have, or to get, egg on one’s face’: to be, or to get, embarrassed or humiliated by the turn of events—refers either to having eggs thrown at one’s face or to yolk stains left on the face after the careless eating of a soft-boiled egg
Read More‘handbag’: how Thatcher enriched the English language
‘handbag’: to bully or coerce by subjecting to a forthright verbal assault or criticism—originally used with reference to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Economist (7 August 1982)—from literal meaning ‘to batter or assault with a handbag’
Read Moreorigin of ‘handicap’: ‘hand in cap’ (name of a game)
mi-17th century—probably from ‘hand in (the) cap’, used of a sort of game in which players put forfeit money in a cap and then drew from it—later applied to a race between two horses (the better of which carried extra weight), arranged by such rules
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