“ad fontes!”
Australia, 1941—‘apples’ is used in phrases such as ‘everything’s apples’, meaning ‘everything is all right’—perhaps from ‘apple-pie order’—may have originated in the Australian armed forces’ slang during World War II
Read MoreUSA—‘a cold day in July’ 1881—‘a cold day in hell’ 1906—those phrases refer to an impossibly distant time or to an extremely unlikely scenario
Read More1906—a familiar name jocularly given to a fanciful deity reputed to be in command of the weather—especially occurs in the phrase ‘send it down, Hughie!’, used to ask that deity to send the rain down from the heavens—also, in the surfers’ lingo: the god of the waves
Read MoreThere have been, since the early 20th century a number of colourful variants of the U.S. phrase ‘as busy as a one-armed paperhanger’—for example, in Australian English, ‘as busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs’ and ‘as busy as a brickie in Beirut’.
Read MoreAustralia, 1907—very spirited or brave—refers to the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly (1855-1880), leader of a band of horse and cattle thieves and bank raiders operating in Victoria, who was eventually hanged in Melbourne
Read MoreAustralia, 1879—With reference to the supposed destruction of the brain by white ants (i.e., termites), the plural noun ‘white ants’ is used of loss of sanity, sense or intelligence. (The singular noun ‘white ant’ occasionally occurred in early use.)
Read MoreAustralia, 1873—a refreshing sea-breeze that blows into Fremantle and Perth after hot weather, especially in the evening—Fremantle is a port city in Western Australia, near Perth—with reference to the action of an onshore breeze against diseases, ‘doctor’ denotes, in Western Australia and in the West Indies, a cool sea-breeze which usually prevails during part of the day in summer
Read MoreAustralia, 1919—a psychiatric asylum—seems to have originated in the slang of the armed forces during the First World War
Read MoreAustralia, 1932—a humorous extension of ‘all over the place’, which means: (literally) everywhere, in every direction, widely scattered; (figuratively) in a confused or disorganised state
Read MoreAustralia, 1939—someone whose presence spoils things for others; an odd person out—of unknown origin—perhaps a variant of ‘gooseberry’, as in ‘to play gooseberry’—perhaps an alteration of ‘gripe’—perhaps related in some respect to ‘sour grapes’
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word histories 