‘Guardianista’: meaning and origin
a reader of, or a writer in, The Guardian, seen as being typically left-wing, liberal and politically correct—UK, 1997—The Guardian is a centre-left newspaper published in London and Manchester, England
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‘cannon fodder’ | ‘chair à canon’
soldiers regarded simply as material to be expended in war—‘cannon fodder’ (1847), said to have been coined after German ‘Kanonenfutter’—French ‘chair à canon’ (1814), first used in reference to Napoléon Bonaparte
Read More‘hot-arsed’: meaning and origin
slang—(used especially of women) lustful; sexually aroused or arousing—first recorded in The Confession of the New Married Couple (London, 1683)
Read Morenotes on ‘no joy without alloy’
also ‘no joy without annoy’—meaning: there is a trace of trouble or difficulty in every pleasure—was already a common proverb in the late sixteenth century
Read More‘plonk’ (cheap inferior wine): origin and early occurrences
Australia, 1927—alteration of ‘blanc’ in French ‘vin blanc’ (‘white wine’)—via rhyming slang forms such as ‘plinketty-plonk’, from phrases such as ‘vin blank’ in the slang of soldiers stationed in France during WWI
Read More‘imbuggerance’ (absolute indifference)
Particularly in Australian English, with reference to the phrase ‘not to care a bugger’, meaning ‘not to care at all’, the noun ‘imbuggerance’, also ‘embuggerance’, denotes ‘absolute indifference’.
Read More‘leather and prunella’: meaning and origin
something of no value, something to which one is utterly indifferent—UK, 1785—derives from a misinterpretation of “Worth makes the Man, and Want of it the Fellow;/The rest, is all but Leather or Prunella.” in An Essay on Man (1734), by Alexander Pope
Read More‘simples’: meaning and origin
interjection used to suggest that something can be done or understood with no difficulty—UK, 2009—from the catchword uttered by Aleksandr Orlov, an animated Russian meerkat, in a television advertising campaign for comparethemarket.com
Read More‘Queen Elizabeth is dead’ | ‘Queen Anne is dead’: meaning and origin
18th century—used humorously and ironically to denote old news, usually with the implication that the person whom the speaker is referring to is simply stating the obvious or restating a well-worn or accepted truth
Read More‘Barney’s bull’: meanings and early occurrences
Australia, 1834—used in various phrases, in particular as a type of someone or something in a very bad state or condition—also in the phrase ‘all behind like Barney’s bull’, meaning ‘very delayed’ or ‘backward’—origin unknown
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