‘a whale of a (good) time’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1871—The phrase ‘a whale of a (good) time’ denotes a hugely enjoyable time, and alludes to the enormousness of whales.
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‘a penny soul never came to twopence’
UK, 1844—extreme meanness never made anyone better off—compare Book of Proverbs, 11:24: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”
Read More‘keep your eye on the sparrow’: meaning and origin
be totally focused on your objective—USA — already well established in 1932—originated in the image of God’s watchful eye upon the sparrow, with reference to the gospel of Matthew, 10:29-32
Read More‘Briticism’: meaning and origin
USA, 1868—coined by U.S. critic Richard Grant White (1822-1885) to denote a word or expression whose original acceptation (preserved in U.S. English) was changed to one that he regarded as debased
Read More‘my name is Simpson, not Samson’: meaning and origin
UK, 1906—used by a workman asked to lift too heavy an object—‘Simpson’ chosen for its similarity with ‘Samson’, the name of a biblical hero of enormous strength
Read Morehistory of ‘many are cold (but) few are frozen’
USA, 1885—humorous alteration of ‘many are called (but) few are chosen’, which refers to The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (gospel of Matthew, 20:1-16)
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘are you there with your bears?’
16th century—exclamation of annoyance at the reappearance of someone or something—from bear-leaders’ regular visits or from story of Elisha and the bears
Read Morethe 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 Morenotes on ‘Chernobyl’: biblical prophecy | cultural disaster
site of a nuclear power station accident (1986)—name associated with the end of the world in the Bible—epithet for Disneyland Paris, seen as a cultural disaster
Read Moremeanings and origin of the term ‘God’s acre’
churchyard—from German ‘Gottesacker’, literally ‘God’s field’—image of the bodies of the dead sown like seeds in order to bear fruit at the time of resurrection
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