origin of ‘lock, stock and barrel’ (i.e., ‘completely’)

18th Mar 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

USA, 1811—based on the three principal components that make up a flintlock gun: ‘lock’ denotes the firing mechanism, ‘stock’ the handle or wooden shoulder-piece to which it is attached, and ‘barrel’ the tube down which the bullet is fired

origin of ‘bobby’ and ‘peeler’ (police officer)

17th Mar 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

UK, 1844—‘bobby’: a policeman—from ‘Bobby’, pet form of ‘Robert’, in allusion to Robert Peel, who, as Home Secretary, established the Metropolitan Police in 1829—cf. ‘peeler’ (1816), originally a member of the Peace Preservation Force in Ireland established in 1814 by Robert Peel

‘handbag’: how Thatcher enriched the English language

16th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

‘handbag’: to bully or coerce by subjecting to a forthright verbal assault or criticism—originally used with reference to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Economist (7 August 1982)—from literal meaning ‘to batter or assault with a handbag’

meaning and origin of ‘to raise Cain’

15th Mar 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

to create trouble or a commotion—USA, 1840—a euphemism for synonymous phrases such as ‘to raise the Devil’ and ‘to raise hell’—from the name of the eldest son of Adam and Eve and murderer of his brother Abel

‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world’

14th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

first recorded in a speech by Rev. George W. Bethune, transcribed in ‘Brief abstract of the fourth annual report of board of Managers of the New-York city Colonization Society’, published in ‘The American Christian Instructor’ of April 1836

‘marmalade’: from Latin ‘mēlŏmĕli’ and ‘mĕlĭmēla’

12th Mar 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

first recorded in 1480—from Portuguese ‘marmelada’ (quince marmalade), from ‘marmelo’ (quince), itself from Latin ‘malomellum’ (quince, sweet pome), a blend of Latin ‘mēlŏmĕli’ (syrup of preserved quinces) and ‘mĕlĭmēla’ (a variety of sweet pome)

the American-English phrase ‘hot under the collar’

11th Mar 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Of American-English origin, the colloquial phrase ‘hot under (or ‘in’) the collar’ means ‘extremely exasperated or angry’. The earliest instance that I have found is from The Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) of 8th July 1869.

‘preposterous’, or ‘having first what should be coming after’

10th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

16th century—from the Latin adjective ‘praeposterus’, composed of the adverb ‘prae’ (‘in front’, ‘before’) and the adjective ‘posterus’ (‘coming after’, ‘following’, ‘next’), so that its literal sense is ‘next (placed) first’, ‘having first what should be coming after’.

How a life jacket came to be named after Mae West.

9th Mar 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

From the name of the American film actress Mae West, renowned for her generous bust, the informal noun ‘Mae West’, attested in 1940, denotes an inflatable life jacket, originally as issued to Royal Air Force aviators during World War II.

“the very pineapple of politeness” and other malapropisms

8th Mar 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

from the name of Mrs Malaprop, a character who confuses long words in The Rivals (1775), a comedy by the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan—character named after ‘malapropos’, from the French locution ‘mal à propos’, literally ‘ill to purpose’