meaning and origin of ‘Maggie’s drawers’
U.S. Army slang 1936—a red flag waved to indicate a complete miss on a target range—probably from bawdy song ‘Those Little Red Drawers That My Maggie Wore’
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meaning and origin of ‘up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire’
‘upstairs to bed’—UK, 1923: title of a song by Nixon Grey—‘Bedfordshire’ jocular extension of ‘bed’ (1665)—‘the wooden hill’ metaphor for ‘the stairs’ (1856)
Read More‘Is a bear Catholic?’ | ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’
USA, 1984—used to indicate that something is blatantly obvious—humorously from ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ and ‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘where’s your violin?’
USA, 1929—said to a man to mean ‘you need a haircut’—from the conventional image of male musicians wearing their hair long
Read Morethe phrase ‘what else did you get for Christmas?’
USA, 1944—sarcastic remark used in exasperation at an impatient motorist who persistently toots their horn—likens the motorist to a child in a toy car
Read More‘Aunt Edna’ (typical theatregoer of conservative taste)
coined by the English playwright Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) in the preface to Volume 2 of ‘The Collected Plays of Terence Rattigan’ (1953)
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘down the Swanee’
UK, 1926—completely lost or wasted—seems to allude to ‘Old Folks at Home’ (1851), also known as ‘Swanee River’, by the U.S. songwriter Stephen Foster
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘jam and Jerusalem’
UK, 20th century—the Women’s Institutes—‘jam’, from jam-making as a typical activity practised by members—‘Jerusalem’, the hymn that members sing at meetings
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘not to know — from a bar of soap’
to be completely unacquainted with someone or something—most earliest uses (late 19th century) in U.S. publications, but a few in Australian publications
Read More‘are there any more at home like you?’: usage and origin
chat-up line—from ‘Tell me, pretty maiden (I must love some one)’, a song of the musical comedy ‘Florodora’, produced in Britain in 1899 and in the USA in 1900
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