‘to drop one’s aitches’: meaning and early occurrences
also ‘to drop one’s h’s’—not to pronounce the letter h at the beginning of words in which it is pronounced in standard English—1855—1847 as ‘not to sound one’s h’s’
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‘Gallic shrug’: meaning and origin
a gesture (made by a French person to deny responsibility, knowledge or agreement) consisting typically in shrugging one’s shoulders while upturning one’s hands
Read More‘that makes two of us’: meaning and origin
used conversationally to declare, often ironically, that one shares the opinion, sentiment, predicament, etc., of the previous speaker—USA, early 20th century
Read More‘to swear like a trooper’: meaning and origin
to use a lot of swearwords—first used in 1713 by Joseph Addison—alludes to the fact that troopers (i.e., soldiers of low rank in the cavalry) had a reputation for coarse language and behaviour
Read More‘town and gown’: meaning and origin
1750—the non-academic inhabitants (‘town’) of a university city and the resident members of the university (‘gown’, denoting the distinctive costume of a member of a university)
Read More‘to rush in where angels fear to tread’: meaning and origin
to embark enthusiastically on a course of action that most sensible people would avoid—coined as ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ by the English poet Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism (1711)
Read Morethe biblical origin of ‘to go the extra mile’
meaning: to try especially hard to achieve something or do it well—originally ‘to go the second mile’—alludes to the gospel of Matthew, 5:41: “And whosoeuer shall compell thee to goe a mile, goe with him twaine”
Read More‘more than meets the eye’: meaning and early occurrences
also ‘more than meets the ear’—meaning: more significance or complexity than is at first apparent—first used by John Milton as ‘more is meant than meets the ear’ in Il Penseroso (1645)
Read More‘to rob Peter to pay Paul’: meanings and origin
to take away from one person, cause, etc., in order to pay or confer something on another; to discharge one debt by incurring another—late 14th century—from the association of ‘Peter’ and ‘Paul’, the names of two leading apostles and saints, and fellow martyrs at Rome
Read More‘if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain’
originally “If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet wil go to the hil” in Of Boldnesse (1625), an essay by the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
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