‘Fabian’ applied to George Washington | the Fabian Society
Washington’s strategy was similar to that of Fabius Cunctator, who defeated Hannibal by avoiding decisive contests—the Fabian Society advocates gradual reforms
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meanings and early instances of ‘Freudian slip’
USA, 1927—a slip of the tongue by which the speaker reveals an unconscious thought—named after Austrian neurologist and psychotherapist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘(but) some — are more equal than others’
USA—from 1848 onwards in contrast to ‘all men are equal’—now often alludes to ‘but some animals are more equal than others’ in Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945)
Read Morecolourful English and French phrases denoting a squint
e.g. ‘one eye at St. Paul’s and the other at Charing-cross’, ‘un œil aux champs et l’autre à la ville’ (one eye at the fields and the other at the town)
Read MoreBritish phrases based on the image of being ‘on toast’
with allusion to food served up on a slice of toast—1877 ‘to have someone on toast’: to have someone at one’s mercy—1886 ‘to be had on toast’: to be cheated
Read Morethe phrase ‘to move the goalposts’—as used in Britain
1924—to unfairly alter the terms of a procedure during its course—also (humorous): the only way for an unsuccessful soccer team to score a goal
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘no joy in Mudville’
USA, 1895—a sense of pervasive and shared disappointment—alludes to the defeat of the baseball team of Mudville, a fictional town in E. L. Thayer’s 1888 poem ‘Casey at the Bat’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’
USA, 1884—a person whose lack of courage is as real as it appears to be—jocular variant of ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’—often misattributed to Winston Churchill
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘yellow brick road’
USA, 1939—road to success or happiness—from the road paved with yellow brick in Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
Read MoreWhy ‘island’ and ‘aisle’ ought to be spelt ‘iland’ and ‘aile’.
The letter ‘s’ in both the nouns currently spelt ‘island’ and ‘aisle’ is due to folk-etymological association of those words with the unrelated noun ‘isle’.
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word histories 