the magic million target
UK, 1883—The word ‘million’ in itself has something magic about it, and the belief exists that a special reward awaits the person who collects a million bus tickets, or a million used postage stamps, etc.
Read MoreCategory: United Kingdom & Ireland
‘punkie (lantern)’ | ‘punkie night’
Somerset, England, 1931—‘punkie (lantern)’: a lantern made by setting a candle in a hollowed-out mangel-wurzel—‘punkie night’: a night, in late October, on which punkies are paraded—‘punkie’: perhaps an alteration of ‘pumpkin’
Read More‘nanny state’: meanings and origins
the government or its policies viewed as overprotective or as interfering unduly with personal choice; a state characterised as having such a government—first coined in 1952 by U.S. journalist Dorothy Thompson—recoined in 1965 by British politician Iain Macleod
Read Morenotes on the phrase ‘a bastard on Father’s Day’
Australia—used to express unluckiness or unhappiness—first recorded in The Four-legged Lottery (1958), by Australian novelist Frank Hardy, who later often reused it
Read More‘(as) cold as a stepmother’s breath’: meanings and origin
Irish English, 1834—extremely cold, literally (i.e., with reference to low temperatures) and figuratively (i.e., with reference to lack of feeling, of emotion)
Read Moretwo usages of ‘pox doctor’s clerk’
UK 1945: ‘as lucky as the pox doctor’s clerk’: very lucky—UK 1954, ‘to look like a pox doctor’s clerk’, Australia 1957, ‘done up like a pox doctor’s clerk’: dressed nattily but in bad taste
Read More‘as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike’: meaning and early occurrences
This phrase means ‘utterly useless’. The earliest occurrences that I have found are British English (from 1981 onwards) and Australian English (from 1983 onwards).
Read More‘to get off at Redfern’ (to practise coitus interruptus)
Australia, 1967—Redfern: a train station positioned one stop before Sydney Central Station—British-English regional variations include, in Newcastle upon Tyne: ‘to get out at Gateshead’
Read More‘car-crash television’: meaning and origin
television programmes that are gratuitously shocking or sensational, or of poor quality—from their eliciting in the viewer a similar horrified fascination to that experienced by people watching scenes of cars crashing
Read More‘croque-monsieur’: meaning and origin
France, 1891; UK, 1908—a sandwich filled with ham and cheese, and toasted or grilled—from ‘croque’, conjugated form of the verb ‘croquer’, to bite, to crunch, and the noun ‘monsieur’ (the reason that this noun was chosen is unknown)
Read More
