‘To go to pot’ was originally a ‘culinary’ phrase.

8th Jan 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The phrase ‘to go to pot’ means ‘to be ruined or destroyed’, ‘to go to pieces’, ‘to deteriorate through neglect’. The allusion is to the cutting up of meat into pieces ready for the cooking-pot, as several 16th-century texts make clear.

‘Glamour’ was originally a Scottish alteration of ‘grammar’.

7th Jan 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

‘Glamour’ was originally a Scottish alteration of ‘grammar’: this article explains how it came to denote an attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing. Classical Greek γραμματική (= grammatikḗ) and classical Latin grammătĭca denoted the methodical study of literature, that is to say, philology in the widest modern sense, including textual […]

origin of ‘dada’ (‘hobby’) and ‘Dada’ (artistic movement)

6th Jan 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

The 1776 French translation of Laurence Sterne’s ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy’ gave to French ‘dada’, a child’s noun for ‘horse’, the figurative meaning of ‘favourite pastime’ or ‘pet idea’.

meaning and origin of ‘violon d’Ingres’

5th Jan 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

First recorded in The Bystander (London) on 24 January 1906, this French phrase means ‘hobby, pastime’; it refers to the passion that the French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) had for playing the violin.

‘hobby’, originally a diminutive of ‘Hob’, pet form of ‘Robert’

4th Jan 2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

‘Hobby’, diminutive of ‘Hob’, pet form of ‘Robert’, was used to denote a small horse, hence a child’s toy with a horse’s head, hence a favourite occupation—cf. French ‘dada’, child’s word for horse, used to denote a favourite pastime

British and French Twelfth-Day traditions

3rd Jan 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

Twelfth Day denotes the twelfth day after Christmas, i.e. 6th January, on which the festival of the Epiphany is celebrated, and which was formerly observed as the closing day of the Christmas festivities. (Epiphany denotes the festival commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi; via Old-French and Anglo-Norman forms such as epyphane (Modern […]

from the trenches of WWI: ‘cootie’ (‘body louse’)

3rd Jan 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

from army use on the Western Front during World War One: ‘cootie’, ‘body louse’, ‘cooty’, ‘infested with lice’, ‘coot’, ‘louse’, probably ultimately refer to the aquatic bird called ‘coot’, reputed to be lice-infested

British, U.S. and French soldiers’ slang during WWI

2nd Jan 2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

some characteristic slang creations of the British, U.S. and French soldiers during World War One, as recorded in ‘Trench Talk’, published in Everybody’s Magazine (New York) of January 1918

‘Zeppelins in a cloud’ (‘sausage and mash’)

1st Jan 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

early 20th century—‘Zeppelins in a cloud’ and variants mean ‘sausage and mash’—during World War One, the phrase was used as a manner of disregarding the fear caused by the bombing raids carried out by Zeppelin airships

The literal meaning of ‘cappuccino’ is ‘Capuchin’.

1st Jan 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

USA, 1948—espresso coffee mixed with steamed milk—borrowed from Italian ‘cappuccino’, literally ‘Capuchin’, because the colour of this type of coffee resembles that of a Capuchin’s habit—cf. French ‘capucin’ (= ‘Capuchin’), a name for the hare, from the colour of the animal’s fur