‘Hooray Henry’: meaning and origin
a lively but ineffectual young upper-class man—UK, 1959—apparently coined in the 1950s by the British jazz manager James Godbolt after ‘Hoorah Henry’, coined in 1936 by the U.S. author Alfred Damon Runyon
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‘Barney’s bull’: meanings and early occurrences
Australia, 1834—used in various phrases, in particular as a type of someone or something in a very bad state or condition—also in the phrase ‘all behind like Barney’s bull’, meaning ‘very delayed’ or ‘backward’—origin unknown
Read More‘Absurdistan’: meanings and origin
a country characterised by absurdity—originally used of Czechoslovakia—the suffix ‘-istan’ (in country names such as ‘Pakistan’) is used as the second element in satirical names denoting, in particular, ‘a country characterised by [the first element]’
Read More‘bullycide’: meaning and origin
suicide committed by a person, especially a child or young adult, as a result of being bullied—blend of the nouns ‘bully’ and ‘suicide’—coined since 2001 on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another
Read More‘the sharpest —— in the ——’: meaning and early occurrences
The adjective ‘sharp’ is colloquially used in the superlative, in various phrases of the form ‘not the sharpest —— in the ——’, indicating that a person is not very intelligent or perceptive, especially in comparison to others.
Read More‘piano player in a brothel’: meaning and early occurrences
used of a person who is implicated in an activity but accepts no responsibility for it—it was used in particular during the Watergate scandal by Senator William Saxbe to characterise President Richard Nixon
Read More‘Pharaoh’s Revenge’: meaning and origin
diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—USA, 1973—does not seem to have been coined after the synonymous ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’—may somehow allude to the legendary curse of the pharaohs
Read More‘gyppy tummy’: meaning and origin
diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—1915, British Army—the word ‘gyppy’ is from ‘gyp’ in ‘Egyptian’, and the suffix ‘-y’, used to form familiar diminutives
Read More‘couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons’: meaning and origin
used of a person who is incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.—Australian politics, 1945, as a comment on Robert Gordon Menzies, generally ascribed to William Morris Hughes
Read More‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’: meaning and origin
USA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’
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