Primary Menu
  • home
  • alphabetical index
  • about me
  • contact
  • donate
word histories

word histories

“ad fontes!”

Tag: Bennett Cerf

some jocular uses of ‘a bit tight under the arms’

4th Sep 2020.Reading time 7 minutes.

UK and USA, 1908: applied to a pair of trousers much too large for the wearer—later also applied to small cars and to socks much too large for the wearer

Read More

origin of ‘I’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination’

7th Aug 2020.Reading time 8 minutes.

Seems to have originated in a joke, first recorded in 1955, in which the Tower of London says to the Leaning Tower of Pisa: “I’ve got the time and you’ve got the inclination.”

Read More

‘take me to your leader’: meaning and early occurrences

9th Jun 2020.Reading time 9 minutes.

the demand that an extraterrestrial makes to the first human being or animal it encounters after alighting from its flying saucer—USA, 1956—from a cliché in science-fiction stories

Read More
Creative Commons License
All posts by word histories are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence.

Search this blog

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 729 other subscribers.
Follow word histories on WordPress.com

Categories

arts Australia & New Zealand etymology French/English linguistics literature media music public affairs religion symbolisms United Kingdom & Ireland USA & Canada

Main Tags

animals Australia Christianity dictionaries drinks economics food human body Ireland judicial Latin military newspapers & magazines phrases politics slang sports & games theatre United Kingdom USA

links

  • A Dictionary of South-African English on Historical Principles
  • Académie française
  • Australian newspapers, magazines and journals, books, and other formats
  • British and Irish newspaper archive
  • Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
  • CNRTL (Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales)
  • Collins Dictionary
  • Dictionaries of the Scots Language / Dictionars o the Scots Leid
  • English, French and Latin dictionaries
  • Gallica (bibliothèque numérique de la Bibliothèque nationale de France)
  • Irish newspaper archive
  • Lexilogos (a comprehensive set of resources for the study of the languages of the world)
  • Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary
  • New-Zealand and Pacific newspapers, magazines and journals, books, and other formats
  • Newspaper archive
  • U.S. newspaper archive

  • Follow Following
    • word histories
    • Join 729 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • word histories
    • Customise
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
This website uses cookies. By continuing, you agree to their use. Learn more, including how we use cookies and how you can change your settings.