‘bladder-pack’: meanings and origins
Canada, 1977: pouch-pack milk, as opposed to cartoned milk—UK, 1984: bag-in-box wine (said to be of Australian-English origin, but this is not corroborated)
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‘oo-la-la land’: meaning and origin
a humorous appellation for France—USA, 1921—‘oo-la-la’ (from the French interjection ‘oh là là’) is stereotypically associated with France
Read More‘to spit feathers’ (to be angry): early occurrences
Australia, 1940 (?)—UK, 1963—origin unknown—either somehow derived from the sense ‘to be parched’ of the phrase ‘to spit feathers’ or a distinct phrase which happens to be identical in form
Read More‘milk-bar cowboy’: meaning and origin
a young man who, as part of a motorcycle gang, congregates in or around a milk bar—New Zealand, 1951—such gangs congregate there because milk bars stay open long after the shops are shut
Read More‘(as) extinct as the diplodocus’: meaning and origin
of a person or thing: irretrievably defunct or out of date—UK, 1905—perhaps originally in allusion to ‘Diplodocus Carnegii’, named after Andrew Carnegie, who, that year, presented the skeleton of that diplodocus to the Natural History Museum of London
Read More‘I wouldn’t piss on (a person) if (that person) were on fire’: meaning and origin
‘I feel intense dislike or contempt for (a person)’—USA, 1950—also occasionally used of miserliness
Read More‘Chateau Cardboard’: meaning and origin
bag-in-box wine—South Africa, 1983—based on the contrast between ‘château’ (referring to expensive wines of superior quality) and ‘cardboard’ (referring to inexpensive bag-in-box wines)
Read More‘purrfect’: meaning and origin
USA, 1876—perfect, especially in cat-related contexts—colloquial, humorous blend of ‘purr’ and ‘perfect’
Read More‘to get off one’s bike’: meaning and origin
to get excited, annoyed, angry—Australia, 1923—maybe based on the image of a person who, while riding a bicycle, gets provoked by another person: the cyclist would then dismount and respond to the provocator
Read More‘sitting duck’: meaning and origin
an easy target, i.e., a person who, or thing that, is defenceless against an attack or other danger—first used in 1936 & 1937 by the Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair
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