‘twelve good men and true’: meaning and origin
a jury in a lawcourt—17th century—but the selection of twelve good men and true to form a jury was mentioned in the 16th century
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‘blue flu’: meaning and origin
absenteeism among police officers (and by extension other workers) who claim to be ill but are in fact absent to support union contract demands or negotiations—USA, 1967—alludes to the traditional colour of police uniforms
Read More‘never the twain shall meet’: meaning and origin
two different people or things are totally incompatible—1901—alludes to “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” in Ballad of East and West (1892), by Rudyard Kipling
Read More‘mark twain’: meaning and origin
1809—U.S. nautical, obsolete: the two-fathom mark on a sounding-line—Samuel Langhorne Clemens chose it as his pen-name in 1863, but a pilot named Isaiah Sellers had first used it as his pen-name
Read More‘light at the end of the tunnel’: meaning and origin
a long-awaited sign that a period of hardship or adversity is nearing an end—UK, 1862—the image is of a railway tunnel, and the phrase has been used literally
Read More‘kangaroo court’ and synonyms: meanings and early occurrences
also ‘mustang court’ and ‘kangaroo inquest’—USA, 1840—a mock court that disregards or parodies existing principles of law; any tribunal in which judgment is rendered arbitrarily or unfairly
Read More‘kangaroo closure’: meaning and origin
UK, 1909—parliamentary procedure: a form of closure by which the chair or speaker selects certain amendments for discussion and excludes others—based on the image of a kangaroo leaping over obstacles
Read More‘wheelie bin’: meaning and origin
UK, 1983—a large, rectangular dustbin with a hinged lid and wheels on two of the corners—bins on wheels were introduced into the United Kingdom in 1980 on the model of what was done in the Federal Republic of Germany
Read More‘to talk turkey’: original meaning, early occurrences (and origin?)
USA, 1792—to say to a person the things that they want to hear—allegedly from the story of a white man and an Indian who went hunting together, and killed a turkey and a buzzard
Read More‘Micawberism’: meaning and origin
irresponsible or unfounded optimism—1857, apparently coined by Charles Dickens—refers to Wilkins Micawber, a character in Dickens’s novel David Copperfield (1850)
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