‘Johnny Foreigner’: meaning and origin
UK, 1899—derogatory—a foreigner; a personification of foreign people—‘Johnny’ is used with modifying word to designate a person of the type, group, profession, etc., specified
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‘Johnny Arab’: meaning and origin
UK, 1920—an Arab man—‘Johnny’, a pet form of ‘John’, is used, with modifying word, to designate a person, especially a man, of the type, group, profession, etc., specified
Read More‘like the back (end) of a bus’: meaning and origin
UK, 1934—used of a person regarded as physically unattractive or sexually undesirable
Read More‘freedom fries’: meaning and origin
USA, 2003—Following France’s opposition to the proposed U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the expression ‘freedom fries’ was substituted for ‘French fries’. This, and other expressions in which ‘freedom’ was substituted for ‘French’, may have been coined almost simultaneously by various persons, independently from each other.
Read More‘Eve-teasing’: meaning and origin
India, 1958—euphemistic appellation for verbal or physical sexual harassment of a woman by a man in a public place—refers to Eve, the first woman in the biblical account of the creation of the world, who is seen as a temptress
Read More‘government stroke’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1837—the deliberately slow pace of work characteristic of public-sector workers—originally used of convict labourers—in Australia as a penal colony, unease about the word ‘convict’ led to the creation of euphemistic terms such as ‘government man’ and ‘public servant’
Read More‘Dickless Tracy’: meanings and origin
USA, 1963—a female police officer or a female traffic warden—puns on ‘dick’, slang for a man’s penis, and the name of Dick Tracy, a comic-strip detective created in 1931 by the U.S. cartoonist Chester Gould
Read More‘Johnny Crapaud’: meanings and origin
UK, 1805—personifies France or the French people, or designates a typical Frenchman—composed of ‘Johnny’, a pet form of ‘John’ used, with modifying word, to designate a person of the type, group, etc., specified, and of French ‘crapaud’ (a toad)—coined by British sailors during the Napoleonic Wars
Read More‘Queen Anne front and Mary Ann back’
UK and USA, 1889—used of anything that is speciously high-class in appearance, but is commonplace in reality—‘Queen Anne’ means ‘beautiful’, as opposed to ‘Mary Ann’, meaning ‘vile’; ‘low’; ‘mean’
Read More‘Liverpool gentleman’: meaning and origin
UK, 1839—a Liverpudlian, especially as opposed to a Mancunian—from the 19th-century distinction between the Liverpudlians, who were involved in trading, and the Mancunians, who were involved in manufacturing
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word histories 