‘to go to Lilywhite’s party’: meaning and origin
USA, 1887—of a child: to go to bed—‘Lilywhite’ refers to the whiteness of the bedsheets—from ‘lily-white’, meaning ‘white as a lily’, hence ‘of a pure white’
Read MoreTag: Canada
‘you can’t tell the mind of a squid’: meaning and origin
Newfoundland, 1958—used of someone or something that is unreliable—refers to the fact that a squid moves backwards and forwards
Read More‘don’t hold your breath’: meaning and origin
don’t wait in anxious anticipation—USA, 1854—the image is of somebody holding their breath when anxious or excited about something
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘curse you, Red Baron!’
colourful way of railing at someone—USA, 1967—from Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts: Snoopy as a WW1 fighter pilot falls victim to German ace Manfred von Richthofen
Read More‘let the moths out of your purse’: meaning and origin
don’t be so niggardly with your money—USA, 1935—the image is of moths that are living in a purse or wallet because it is not frequently opened
Read Morehistory of ‘that’s the stuff to give ’em/to give the troops’
First World War military slang—extended forms of ‘that’s the stuff’—used in approval of what has just been done or said, or to mean ‘that is what is needed’
Read More‘mushroom treatment: kept in the dark and fed bullshit’
American English, 1965—signification: to be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense—in use a few years later in Australian English and British English
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’
USA—used ironically as a response to a question or statement felt to be blatantly obvious—from 1959 onwards as ‘Does a bear live in the woods?’ and variants
Read More‘a bird cannot fly on one wing’: meaning and origin
USA, 1902—jocularly used to justify the necessity of taking another alcoholic drink—Irish variant (1947): ‘a bird never flew on one wing’
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase “’arf a mo’, Kaiser!”
“half a moment, Kaiser!”—1914 as the caption to a drawing by Bert Thomas, published in the Weekly Dispatch (London) to advertise a tobacco fund for soldiers
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