the American-English origin of the phrase ‘like greased lightning’

13th July 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

denotes extreme quickness of movement—the use of ‘greased’ likens lightning to a machine that a mechanic has lubricated in order to minimise the friction and make it run easily

adolescence: ‘the awkward age’ – ‘l’âge ingrat’

10th May 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

UK, 1832—‘the awkward age’: the adolescence, when one is no longer a child but not yet properly grown up, a time of life characterised by physical and emotional changes—translates in French as ‘l’âge ingrat’, ‘the thankless age’

A dunce was originally a follower of John Duns Scotus.

24th February 2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

‘dunce’: originally a follower of John Duns Scotus (circa 1265-1308), scholastic theologian; in the 16th century, Scotus’s system was attacked with ridicule by the humanists and the reformers as a farrago of needless entities and useless distinctions

the cultural background to ‘the Swan of Avon’

22nd February 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

an epithet for William Shakespeare, born at Stratford-upon-Avon, on the River Avon—first used by Ben Jonson in the earliest collected edition (1623) of Shakespeare’s plays—but this use of ‘swan’ for a bard, a poet, is rooted in a tradition going back to antiquity

How ‘Grub Street’ came to refer to hack work.

23rd December 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

From the 17th century onwards, Grub Street, in Moorgate, London, was inhabited by literary hacks.

meaning and origin of the phrase ‘over the moon’

22nd June 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

The phrase ‘over the moon’ means ‘very happy’, ‘delighted’. It seems to have originated in Ireland in the early 18th century.

meaning and origin of ‘to steal someone’s thunder’

22nd March 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

photograph: pixabay The phrase to steal someone’s thunder means: to use the ideas, policies, etc., devised by another person, political party, etc., for one’s own advantage or to anticipate their use by the originator. It is said to have originated in an exclamation by the English critic and ineffective playwright John Dennis […]