“ad fontes!”
originally: a child wearing the house key tied around their neck and staying in the streets while their mother is at work—USA, 1935: a poor Afro-American woman’s child—USA & UK, WWII: a child whose mother was engaged in war industry
Read MoreUSA, 1901—Especially in ‘to have them rolling in the aisles’, the colloquial phrase ‘in the aisles’ is used in various expressions to suggest a wildly enthusiastic reaction, especially uncontrollable laughter, on the part of an audience.
Read More‘a stiff upper lip’: a quality of uncomplaining stoicism—now understood as referring to what is believed to be a quintessentially British trait, the repression of emotion, but originated in fact in North America (USA, 1811)
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three meanings: 1/ in outdoor pageants: a man dressed in greenery, representing a wild man of the woods—2/ in inn names and signs: a forester—3/ in medieval English churches: a representation of a man’s face composed of, surrounded by, or sprouting foliage or branches
Read MoreUK, 1831—to startle or upset a sedate or conventionally-minded community—most probably from the following lines in The Tragedy of Coriolanus (circa 1607), by William Shakespeare: “like an eagle in a dove-cote, I | Flutter’d your Volscians in Corioli”
Read MoreUSA, Boston Morning Post, 26 May 1834—‘Dutch uncle’: a person giving firm but benevolent advice—unknown origin—perhaps an allusion to Calvinistic sternness
Read More‘double Dutch’, 19th century—from ‘Dutch’ in the sense of a language that few people can speak, and ‘double’ as a mere intensifier—‘High Dutch’, 17th century—loan translation from French ‘haut allemand’ (= ‘High German’), used in the sense of gibberish
Read MoreUK, 1967—chiefly British—‘bums on seats’: the members of an audience, at a theatre, cinema or other place of entertainment, especially when viewed as a source of income
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late 16th century—from early modern Dutch ‘maelstrom’ (now ‘maalstroom’)—originally a proper name designating a powerful whirlpool in the Arctic Ocean, off the west coast of Norway, which was formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a wide radius
Read Morefrom classical Latin ‘urbī’, dative of ‘urbs’ (city), and ‘orbī’, dative of ‘orbis’ (orb, circle)—in classical Latin, ‘orbis terrarum’, ‘orbis terrae’, the orb, or circle, of the earth, meant by extension the world, since the ancients regarded the earth as a circular plane or disk
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word histories 