How Adolf Hitler popularised ‘heads will roll’ in 1930.
based on the notion of execution by beheading—popularised by a literal threat of executions made on 25th September 1930 by Adolf Hitler
Read Moreone more discussion about ‘Indian summer’
the problems with the “novel origin story for ‘Indian Summer’” put forward by Matthew R. Halley in Notes and Queries (September 2017)
Read Morethe Bloody Mary before the name existed
Unnamed cocktails consisting of vodka and tomato juice became fashionable in the 1930s before the name ‘Bloody Mary’ was coined in November 1939.
Read Moreorigin of ‘hatchet man’: a hired Chinese assassin
USA—‘hatchet man’ (1874): a hired Chinese assassin using a hatchet or cleaver—‘hatchet work’ (1895): a murder carried out by a hatchet man
Read More‘to give up the ghost’ (to breathe one’s last)
attested in the Later Version (1395) of the Wycliffe Bible—‘ghost’ means ‘the soul or spirit, as the principle of life’
Read Moreorigin of ‘avoirdupois’: goods sold by weight
from Old French and Anglo-Norman ‘aveir de peis’, ‘goods of weight’, as distinguished from the goods sold by measure or number
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘the ghost walks’
payday—UK, 1831, theatrical slang—from ‘Hamlet’, where Horatio asks the Ghost if he walks because he has “hoorded treasure in the wombe of earth”
Read More18th-century instances of ‘Indian summer’
18th-century instances of ‘Indian summer’ in addition to the earliest one—including a 1791 figurative use of the term
Read More‘everything in the garden is lovely’ (all is well)
appeared as a London catchphrase in 1897—not from the title and refrain of an 1898 song
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word histories 