“ad fontes!”
The phrase to take French leave means: to depart unnoticed or without permission.—Synonym: to take Dutch leave. The earliest (and most curious) occurrence of to take French leave that I have found is from the anonymous novel Benedicta (1741)—the heroine is about to get married: Mrs Butler, who on this extraordinary occasion, had taken French leave […]
Read MoreMEANING The phrase (if you’ll) excuse (or pardon) my French is used as an apology for swearing. ORIGIN The current sense seems to derive from an actual apology for speaking French. (It is therefore unnecessary to invoke the centuries-old adversarial relationship between the English and the French.) The form pardon my French is first attested in Randolph, a Novel (1823), by the American […]
Read MoreMEANING a member of a family or group who is regarded as a disgrace to it ORIGIN This was perhaps originally an allusion to the book of Genesis, 30. Jacob has already worked fourteen years for both of Laban’s daughters, and after Joseph’s birth he desires to take leave of Laban. They reach […]
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Aunt Sally – from The Modern Playmate: A book of games, sports, and diversions for boys of all ages (new revised edition – 1875?), by John George Wood (1827-89) The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition – 1885) thus defined Aunt Sally: a game much in vogue at fairs and races, in which […]
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MEANING first class, outstanding ORIGIN Lloyd’s Register, historically Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, is an independent society formed in 1760 by a group of merchants operating at Lloyd’s coffee house in London, which surveys ships to ensure compliance with standards of strength and maintenance. The name also denotes an annual publication giving details […]
Read MoreMEANING in the open; without dishonesty, concealment or fraud ORIGIN The adverb above board originally meant with one’s cards visible above the level of the board (that is, the playing table), so as to avoid suspicion of cheating. In A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Samuel Johnson wrote: Above-board. In open […]
Read MoreMEANING The phrase to be barking up the wrong tree means to be pursuing a mistaken or misguided line of thought or course of action—cf. also origin of ‘gone coon’. ORIGIN In Americanisms, Old and New. A Dictionary of Words, Phrases and Colloquialisms peculiar to the United States, British America, the West Indies, […]
Read MoreThe proper name Guy is derived, via French, from the Old German Wido, either from wit, meaning wide, or from witu, wood. Wido has become Guy in French because in words of Germanic origin, when initial, the labio-velar approximant /w/ has regularly become the velar /g/. For instance, in the French noun loup-garou, the element garou corresponds to English werewolf—in fact, loup was added when the […]
Read MoreThe proverb you can’t have your cake and eat it (too) means you can’t enjoy both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives. It made more sense in its early formulations, when the positions of have and eat had not been reversed. It is first recorded in A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of […]
Read MoreThe word Mayday, which dates from 1923, is used as an international radio distress signal, especially by ships and aircraft. It was supposedly coined by Frederick Stanley Mockford (1897-1962), a senior radio officer at London’s Croydon Airport, but this has not been substantiated: the fact that this story has often been repeated gives it a semblance […]
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