“ad fontes!”
UK, 1710—in a situation in which any action one takes will have adverse consequences—‘cleft’, past participle of the verb ‘cleave’, means ‘split in two to a certain depth’—the image is of one being squeezed between the stick’s prongs
Read More1885—a person who smokes continually, typically by lighting a cigarette from the stub of the last one smoked—loan translation from German ‘Kettenraucher’—originally referred to Otto von Bismarck
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African-American, 1966—different things please or satisfy different people—‘stroke’ denotes a comforting gesture of approval or congratulation, and, by extension, a flattering or friendly remark
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1928 in Clara Butt: Her Life-Story, by H. W. Ponder—“Sing ’em muck! It’s all they can understand!”: advice given by Australian soprano Nellie Melba to English contralto Clara Butt, who was about to undertake a tour of Australia
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Australia—to have the gift of the gab—‘to be able to talk under water’ (1951)—‘to be able to talk under wet cement’ (1978)—‘to be able to talk under wet concrete’ (1980)
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Australia, 1953—used of an extremely lazy person—refers to the artificial respirator that kept polio patients alive by “breathing” for them
Read MoreAustralia, 1981—the ideology of the Australian Labor Party’s left wing, “for whom the ultimate test of a policy is the feeling of personal virtuousness to be derived from its espousal”—Labor politician James McClelland claimed to have coined this phrase
Read MoreAustralia, 1982—a familiar name given to the Long Bay Correctional Complex, a correctional facility located in Malabar, Sydney, New South Wales
Read More1980s—to become wildly or explosively angry; to become highly excited or enthusiastic; to intensify rapidly and especially alarmingly—refers to the failure of a guided missile’s guidance system (1966)
Read MoreUSA, 1953—value for money, return on an investment—originally used of military spending on nuclear weapons—‘bang’ denotes a nuclear explosion, ‘buck’ denotes a dollar
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word histories 