“ad fontes!”
USA, 1929: to force someone into a situation from which it is not easy to escape—the image is of someone who is painting a floor and ends up in a corner of the room with wet paint all around them (USA, 1913)
Read Morethe systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel—apparently coined in 2009 by Karma Nabulsi, Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Read MoreUSA, 1900: to get a stage act ready—Canada, 1961: to organise oneself to undertake or achieve something—from ‘to get together’ (i.e., to organise, put in order, harmonise)
Read MoreCanada, 1928—resembling Jeeves, the perfect valet in stories by the English author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975); this fictional character first appeared in 1915
Read Morean impressive person or thing, viewed as being difficult to rival or surpass—USA, 1912, in reference to the difficulty faced by an entertainer coming on stage immediately after a popular or successful act
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‘to spread [something or someone] like Marmite’ (1964)—‘like Marmite, a little goes a long way’ (1970)—Marmite is a savoury paste made from concentrated yeast and vegetable extract, used as a spread and for enriching soups and stews
Read Morethe targeting of a potentially controversial message to specific voters while avoiding offending those voters with whom the message will not be popular—Canada, 1995—the image is that, like the sound made by a dog whistle, the message is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed
Read Moresexual intercourse—Scotland, 1968—reduplication (with variation of the initial consonant and addition of the suffix ‘-y’) of the noun ‘rump’, denoting a person’s buttocks
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a raised band across a road, designed to make motorists reduce their speed—1961—based on the image of a policeman lying asleep in the middle of a road—in early use often with reference to Jamaica
Read Morethe experience of a life of hardship regarded as a means of instruction—USA, 1870
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word histories 