“ad fontes!”
UK, 1918—a malediction, typically uttered as a parting shot after a quarrel—seems to have originated as one child’s threat to another—the reason the word ‘rabbit’ was chosen is unknown
Read MoreUK, 1785—has been used to address a red-haired person—sometimes followed by the retort ‘there’s enough water in yours to put it out’ and variants
Read MoreUSA, 1979—the children’s ability to pressurise their parents into buying something, or doing something for them, by continuing to ask for it until their parents agree to do it—originally referred to television advertising targeting children
Read MoreUK—1879 “where the monkey put the shells”—1892 “where the monkey put the nuts”—with reference to the anus, this slang phrase expresses contemptuous rejection
Read MoreUK, 1890—the dated jocular exclamations ‘my giddy aunt!’, ‘my sainted aunt!’, etc., express surprise, consternation, etc.—they are extended forms of the exclamation ‘my aunt!’
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1941 in the sense ‘under the influence of alcohol’—aided by the phonetic similarity of ‘grip’ and ‘grape’, this phrase has, in the course of time, been coined on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another
Read MoreBritish English, 1843—The theatrical phrase it will be (or it will come) all right at night (or all right on the night) means the opening night will go well.
Read Moreoriginated (1915) as the jocular beginning, destined to grip the reader’s attention, of a hypothetical novel or short story—soon (1919) came to be also used either without precise meaning or as a jocular exclamation
Read More1947—is used to express an attitude of insularity and hostility to foreigners attributed to the British—a shortening of ‘golliwog’, the derogatory and offensive noun ‘wog’ designates a non-white person
Read Moretitle of a CBS television documentary first broadcast in 1966—came to be used derogatorily of any fast package-tour—gave rise to the pattern ‘(if) it’s Tuesday, this (or it) must be ——’, used of travel anywhere
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word histories 