‘dry as a Pommy’s towel’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1981—very dry—alludes to the alleged poor personal hygiene of the British—here, the Australian noun ‘Pommy’ designates a British person
Read MoreCategory: public affairs
an Australian use of ‘grasshopper’
1950—‘grasshopper’ and its shortened form ‘grassy’, typically used in the plural, denote a tourist, especially a visitor to Canberra—the image is that a coachload of tourists is similar to a swarm of grasshoppers
Read More‘rose-coloured spectacles’: meaning and origin
UK, 1830—a happy or positive attitude that fails to notice negative things, leading to a view of life that is not realistic
Read More‘to beat Banagher’: meaning and origin
to surpass everything—Ireland, 1821—probably refers to a strong military fort at Banagher, a town in County Offaly, in the province of Leinster, Ireland
Read More‘the clean potato’: meaning and origin
the very, the real, or the proper person or thing—1830—of Scottish or Irish origin—perhaps an extended form of the synonymous phrase ‘the potato’
Read More‘squeeze pidgin’: meaning and origin
China, 1849—extortion—from ‘squeeze’, denoting a forced exaction or impost made by a Chinese official or servant, and ‘pidgin’ in its original sense of business
Read More‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’
UK, 1857—This phrase was originally used by children to express or encourage an attitude of indifference to taunts, insults or other verbal abuse.
Read More‘red on the map’ | ‘to paint the map red’: meanings and origin
UK, 19th century—‘red on the map’: the colonies and dominions of the British Empire—‘to paint the map red’: to expand the territory of the British Empire—from the colour used to represent British colonies and dominions on maps
Read More‘toffee-nosed’: meaning and origin
UK, 1914—snobbish or supercilious—refers perhaps to ‘toff’, denoting a fashionable upper-class person—the image is perhaps of someone who, considering themself superior, keeps their nose high in contempt for the lower classes—cf. the form ‘toffy-nosed’ (1919)
Read More‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’: meaning and origin
UK, 1920—a group of three objects or persons—alludes to Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, a trio of animal characters featured in a children’s comic strip published in The Daily Mirror (London) from 1919 onwards
Read More
word histories 