“ad fontes!”
to invest one with energy—USA, 1959 & 1960—used as an advertising slogan by both Oklahoma Oil Company and Humble Oil & Refining Company—this advertising slogan soon became a popular catchphrase
Read MoreAustralia, 1933—an addict of cheap wine or/and of methylated spirits—apparently coined jocularly after ‘Wyandotte’, denoting a domestic chicken of a medium-sized American breed
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Australia—1914: the nose of an overly inquisitive person—later: an overly inquisitive person, who pries into the affairs of others—hence used as a verb meaning ‘to pry’, ‘to snoop’
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UK, 1880—a promenade at the seaside resort of New Brighton, in north-western England—alludes to the fact that cooked ham served with eggs was a popular dish at New Brighton’s eating-places
Read MoreAustralian English, 1848: any urban area (said to be of Aboriginal origin)—Irish and British English, 1862: Dublin and London—alludes to smoke as characteristic of an urban area
Read MoreAustralia, 1893—refers to extreme thirst or to extreme dryness—popularised by the Australian short-story writer and balladist Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
Read MoreAustralia, 1901—refers to rough penmanship—alludes to Clancy of the Overflow (originally published in The Bulletin, Sydney, on 21st December 1889), by the Australian poet Andrew Barton Paterson
Read More1842—The noun ‘patter’ denotes the sound of light footfall, and the phrase ‘the patter of tiny feet’, and its variants, denote the presence of one or several young children, or the imminent birth of a child.
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USA, 1925—this phrase refers to the impossibility of reverting a situation to how it formerly existed
Read Moreto eat heartily—first occurs in Augusta Triumphans: Or, The Way to make London the most flourishing City in the Universe (1728), by Daniel Defoe
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word histories 