‘silent like the ‘p’ in swimming’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1925—With, of course, a pun on ‘pee’, meaning ‘to urinate’, the jocular phrase ‘silent like (the) ‘p’ in swimming’ is used when exposing a difficulty in pronunciation.
Read MoreTag: Canada
‘tennis, anyone?’: meaning and origin
theatre—a typical entrance or exit line given to a young man in a superficial drawing-room comedy—USA 1934—but 1908 in a short story evoking the pastimes of members of the leisured class during a stay at a country house
Read More‘one may as well have the game as the name’
American English, 1823—meaning: if one is falsely reputed to act in a specific manner, then one may as well act in that manner
Read More‘good field, no hit’: meaning and purported origin
(baseball) a good fielder, but a poor hitter, i.e., batter—USA, 1925—purportedly coined in 1924 by Miguel Gonzales to describe Moe Berg in a telegram to Mike Kelley
Read More‘kiss cam’: meaning and early occurrences
a live video feed in a sports arena showing images of selected couples in the audience in the expectation that they will kiss—USA and Canada, 2001
Read More‘any man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad’
used in 1939 by Leo Rosten about U.S. actor W. C. Fields—has been wrongly attributed to the latter—but first used by U.S. journalist Byron Darnton, according to an article of 1937
Read Morean offensive phrase: ‘bingo wings’
USA, 1992—the folds of loose skin or fat which hang from the undersides of a person’s upper arms—so named because they are common in older women, who are regarded as the type of person most likely to play bingo
Read More‘the (great) god Bingo’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1938—UK, 1961—satirical phrase referring to the addiction to bingo, a game in which players mark off numbers on cards as the numbers are drawn randomly by a caller, the winner being the first person to mark off all their numbers
Read Morea Pepysian phrase: ‘and so to bed’
phrase popularised by its frequent use in the diary (1659-69) of Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)—not peculiar to him, however, as it was used for example by Philip Massinger in 1624
Read More‘your mother wears army boots’: meaning, origin (?), and early occurrences
USA, 1947—a mild insult perhaps alluding to impecuniousness—seems to have originated amongst teenagers and young adults
Read More
word histories 