‘Dutch uncle’ (who gives firm but benevolent advice)
USA, Boston Morning Post, 26 May 1834—‘Dutch uncle’: a person giving firm but benevolent advice—unknown origin—perhaps an allusion to Calvinistic sternness
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘like a blue-arsed fly’
British English, armed forces, 1936—With reference to the bluebottle fly, the colloquial phrase ‘like a blue-arsed fly’ is used to describe someone engaged in constant, frantic activity or movement.
Read More‘same old, same old’: meaning and early occurrences
used to convey that something is unvaryingly familiar or drearily predictable—first recorded (USA, 1963) as the title of a song by Roger Kellaway, American jazz pianist and composer
Read Morethe surprising origin of ‘under wraps’ (concealed)
USA, 1910s—originated in horse racing: ‘under wraps’ is used of a horse that the rider is holding back and intentionally keeping from running at top speed—not from the wrapping placed over newly developed machines before their official launch
Read Moreorigin of ‘to crawl out of the woodwork’
USA, 1930—‘to crawl, or to come, out of the woodwork’: of an unpleasant or unwelcome person or thing, to come out of hiding, to emerge from obscurity; the image is of vermin or insects crawling out of crevices or other hidden places in a building
Read Moreorigin of ‘apple polisher’ (a person who curries favour)
USA—‘apple polisher’ (1918): a person who curries favour with a superior; ‘apple polishing’ (1926): (an instance of) currying favour—with reference to the former practice of bringing a shiny apple as a gift to one’s teacher
Read MoreHow a murder popularised ‘sugar daddy’ in 1923.
from ‘heavy-sugar daddy’ (USA, 1923), popularised by the murder of Anna Keenan (a.k.a. Dorothy King), who was a ‘heavy-sugar baby’, i.e., a woman ‘coated’ with ‘sugar’ (i.e., money) by a ‘daddy’ (i.e., an older man)
Read Moreorigin of ‘decent’ (sufficiently clothed to see visitors)
USA, 1911—‘to be decent’: ‘to be sufficiently clothed to see visitors’; often as a coy or jocular enquiry ‘are you decent?’—originated in the question asked when knocking at the door of an actor’s or actress’s dressing room in a theatre
Read Moreorigin of ‘the end of civilization as we know it’
first recorded in the United Kingdom in 1914, with reference to the civilizational implication of the German invasion of Belgium at the beginning of World War One; therefore, not first used by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941)
Read Moreorigin of ‘watershed’ as used about British television
UK, 1962—the time after which programmes unsuitable for children are broadcast on television—from the image of a dividing line between two different sorts of programmes
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word histories 