‘accidents will happen in the best-regulated families’
UK, 1808—elaboration on ‘accidents will happen’, meaning accidents will happen despite efforts taken to prevent them
Read MoreTag: Alexander Pope
the cultural background to the plebeian ‘trunkmaker’
UK, 18th and 19th centuries—‘trunkmaker’ was often employed with allusion to the use of the sheets of unsaleable books for trunk-linings
Read Morethe American-English origin of the phrase ‘like greased lightning’
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
Read Moreadolescence: ‘the awkward age’ – ‘l’âge ingrat’
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’
Read MoreA dunce was originally a follower of John Duns Scotus.
‘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
Read Morethe cultural background to ‘the Swan of Avon’
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
Read MoreHow ‘Grub Street’ came to refer to hack work.
From the 17th century onwards, Grub Street, in Moorgate, London, was inhabited by literary hacks.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘over the moon’
The phrase ‘over the moon’ means ‘very happy’, ‘delighted’. It seems to have originated in Ireland in the early 18th century.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to steal someone’s thunder’
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 […]
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