“ad fontes!”
1988, Australia & USA—apathy, indifference or mental exhaustion arising from exposure to too much information—especially stress induced by the attempt to assimilate excessive amounts of information from the media, the Internet or at work
Read MoreUSA, 1969—the action or process of becoming or being made plain, ordinary, uninteresting or insipid—from the adjective ‘bland’ and the suffix ‘‑ification’, forming nouns of action
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UK, derogatory—a male van driver, often of a white van, whose driving is selfish and aggressive—1997, in a report issued by the Freight Transport Association
Read MoreUK, 1867—a disastrous or particularly unpleasant year—Latin, literally ‘a horrible year’—coined after Latin ‘annus mirabilis’, literally ‘an extraordinary year’
Read Moregrim and ironical humour—UK, 1860, in reference to the practice of public executions—UK, 1870, as a loan translation from German ‘Galgenhumor’, in the context of the Franco-Prussian War
Read MoreAustralia, 1918—to get selected for a task, to gain recognition or approval, to succeed—the image is of getting selected in a sporting team (‘guernsey’: a shirt worn by soccer or rugby players)
Read Morein the phrases ‘(as) regular as pig tracks’ (1853) and ‘(as) common as pig tracks’ (1854), the plural noun ‘pig tracks’ is an intensifier—Southern United States
Read MoreUSA, 1882—the fourteenth of July, the national holiday of the French republic, commemorating the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789—also shortened to ‘Quatorze’ (1898)
Read Morethe fourteenth of July, the national holiday of the French republic, commemorating the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789—coined in 1837 by Thomas Carlyle
Read MoreFirst World War—a non-flying member of an air force—in reference to the flightless bird of New Zealand
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word histories 