“ad fontes!”
USA and Australia respectively—from a joke about robbers threatening to kiss every woman on the train/coach: when a gentleman asks them not to, a lady protests ‘who’s robbing this train/coach?’
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USA, 1830—used in association with ‘see’, ‘said the blind man’ puns on this verb’s primary meaning (‘to perceive with the eyes’) and secondary meanings (‘to understand’, ‘to find out’, ‘to examine’)
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a deliberate malapropism punning on ‘I resent that remark’—USA, 1940
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writing is more effective than military power or violence—UK, 1832—often erroneously ascribed to E. Bulwer-Lytton in ‘Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy’ (1839)
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used upon parting, and often jocularly, this phrase means ‘behave yourself’—USA, 1911—had become hackneyed by 1918
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a great commotion about a trivial matter—‘a storm in a teacup’: UK, 1775—‘une tempête dans un verre d’eau’: France, 1785
Read MoreUK, 1904—punning extension (in which ‘time’ is a verb, and ‘flies’ a noun) of the cliché ‘time flies’
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USA—originally used during the 1960 presidential election campaign by the Democratic Party to denigrate Richard Nixon, the Republican Party’s nominee
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originated in magazine advertisements for the bodybuilding course created and marketed by Italian-born U.S. bodybuilder Charles Atlas (Angelo Siciliano – 1892-1972)
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U.S. slang, 2005—a gesture consisting in placing one hand on top of the other and wiggling the thumbs, made to reduce embarrassment
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word histories 