origin of ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’

2nd Apr 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

USA, 1939—‘there is’, or ‘ain’t’, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’: everything inevitably involves a cost of some kind—literal meaning of ‘free lunch’ (first half of the 19th century): a lunch provided free of charge in a bar, saloon, etc., as a means of attracting customers

the shadowy history of the word ‘silhouette’

30th Mar 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

1763 in French, 1798 in English—from the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709-67), Controller-General of Finances in 1759—perhaps because he might have invented the portrait in profile obtained by tracing the outline of a head or figure by means of its shadow

the history of ‘burnsides’, ‘sideburns’ and ‘sideboards’

29th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

After Ambrose Burnside, Union general in the U.S. Civil War, ‘burnsides’ (1866) denotes thick side whiskers worn with a moustache and clean-shaven chin; on the pattern of ‘side whiskers’, it was altered to ‘sideburns’ (1875), itself altered to ‘sideboards’ (1882).

origin of ‘lock, stock and barrel’ (i.e., ‘completely’)

18th Mar 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

USA, 1811—based on the three principal components that make up a flintlock gun: ‘lock’ denotes the firing mechanism, ‘stock’ the handle or wooden shoulder-piece to which it is attached, and ‘barrel’ the tube down which the bullet is fired

origin of ‘bobby’ and ‘peeler’ (police officer)

17th Mar 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

UK, 1844—‘bobby’: a policeman—from ‘Bobby’, pet form of ‘Robert’, in allusion to Robert Peel, who, as Home Secretary, established the Metropolitan Police in 1829—cf. ‘peeler’ (1816), originally a member of the Peace Preservation Force in Ireland established in 1814 by Robert Peel

‘handbag’: how Thatcher enriched the English language

16th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

‘handbag’: to bully or coerce by subjecting to a forthright verbal assault or criticism—originally used with reference to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Economist (7 August 1982)—from literal meaning ‘to batter or assault with a handbag’

the American-English phrase ‘hot under the collar’

11th Mar 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Of American-English origin, the colloquial phrase ‘hot under (or ‘in’) the collar’ means ‘extremely exasperated or angry’. The earliest instance that I have found is from The Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) of 8th July 1869.

meaning of ‘to go (all) round the houses’

5th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

First attested in 1943, the British-English colloquial phrase ‘to go (all) round the houses’ means ‘to get to the point in a lengthy or roundabout way’, from its literal sense, ‘to take an unnecessarily circuitous route to one’s destination’.

‘all behind, like a cow’s tail’ (left behind, late)

4th Mar 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

The phrase ‘all behind, like a cow’s tail’ and its variants mean ‘left behind’ and ‘late in accomplishing a task’. They appeared in print in the mid-19th century in the USA, Australia and Britain.

‘take the Fifth’: decline to reveal one’s own secrets

1st Mar 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

‘to take the Fifth’: to decline to reveal one’s own secrets—from ‘to take the Fifth Amendment’: to appeal to Article V of the original amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “No person […] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

word histories

Category: public affairs