‘piano player in a brothel’: meaning and early occurrences

20th Jul 2022.Reading time 10 minutes.

used of a person who is implicated in an activity but accepts no responsibility for it—it was used in particular during the Watergate scandal by Senator William Saxbe to characterise President Richard Nixon

‘Pharaoh’s Revenge’: meaning and origin

19th Jul 2022.Reading time 9 minutes.

diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—USA, 1973—does not seem to have been coined after the synonymous ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’—may somehow allude to the legendary curse of the pharaohs

‘gyppy tummy’: meaning and origin

18th Jul 2022.Reading time 13 minutes.

diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—1915, British Army—the word ‘gyppy’ is from ‘gyp’ in ‘Egyptian’, and the suffix ‘-y’, used to form familiar diminutives

‘to shoot the cat’: meaning (and origin?)

17th Jul 2022.Reading time 12 minutes.

to vomit, especially from drunkenness—slang, obsolete—1609 as ‘to jerk the cat’—perhaps alludes to the fact that cats are prone to vomit—cf. also the obsolete French verb ‘renarder’, to vomit, from the noun ‘renard’, denoting a fox

‘granny-bashing’ | ‘granny-battering’: meanings and origin

16th Jul 2022.Reading time 12 minutes.

UK, 1972—the nouns ‘granny-bashing’ and ‘granny-battering’ denote: a) the assault or mugging of elderly persons; b) abuse of an elderly member of one’s family, especially one’s grandmother

‘Aunt’ | ‘Granny’: The Sydney Morning Herald

15th Jul 2022.Reading time 16 minutes.

‘Aunt’ (1842) and ‘Granny’ (1851)—nicknames for The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales), with reference to its conservativism—‘Granny’ has come to be used affectionately

‘couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons’: meaning and origin

13th Jul 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

used of a person who is incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.—Australian politics, 1945, as a comment on Robert Gordon Menzies, generally ascribed to William Morris Hughes

‘charity dame’ | ‘charity moll’: meaning and origin

12th Jul 2022.Reading time 13 minutes.

Australia—‘charity dame’ 1949—‘charity moll’ 1962—an amateur prostitute who charges less than the usual rate—from ‘Moll’, pet form of the female forename ‘Mary’, the noun ‘moll’ has long been used to designate a prostitute

‘(as) mad as a (cut) snake’: meaning and origin

11th Jul 2022.Reading time 15 minutes.

out of one’s mind, extremely annoyed—Australia, 1900; New Zealand, 1907—originally as ‘(as) mad as a snake’, ‘(as) mad as snakes’ and variants—later as ‘(as) mad as a cut snake’

‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’: meaning and origin

10th Jul 2022.Reading time 15 minutes.

USA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’