‘singing milkshake’: meaning and origin
1979—nickname given, in particular, to singer Olivia Newton-John—alludes to the type of popular music that (like a milkshake) is discarded as soon as it has been consumed
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‘not to have two yachts to rub together’
applied to a rich person complaining of having insufficient means of existence; to a person who is merely free from financial worry—USA, 1936—coined humorously after ‘not to have two pennies to rub together’
Read More‘(as) drunk as Chloe’: meaning and purported origin
UK, 1788—very drunk—may refer to Chloe, a woman with whom the English poet Matthew Prior (1664-1721) allegedly drank, and whom he often mentioned in his poems
Read More‘lager lout’: meaning and origin
UK, 1987—a young man who behaves in an unpleasant or aggressive manner as a result of drinking (typically lager) excessively—lager, a pale beer, is favoured by the young as opposed to the dark, traditional bitter English beer
Read More‘to drink with the flies’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1898—to drink by oneself in a public house, which is regarded as an unsociable attitude—the image is that the solitary drinker has no other companions than the flies
Read More‘Lady Blamey’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1941—an improvised drinking glass made by slicing the top off a bottle—named after Lady Olga Blamey, wife of General Thomas Blamey
Read More‘to have death adders in one’s pocket’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1930—describes a person who is reluctant, or very slow, to pay for something—the image is of a snake biting the person when they put their hand in their pocket to get at their money
Read More‘rugby, racing and beer’: meaning and origin
the three traditional interests of the stereotypical New-Zealand man—but also applied to both sexes—1962 or 1963 as the title and in the lyrics of a song by the New-Zealand singer-songwriter Rod Derrett
Read More‘Joe Six-Pack’: meaning and origin
a hypothetical ordinary working man—USA, 1970—refers to a man who buys beer in six-packs—apparently coined by a political informant on the blue-collar area of Fields Corner in Dorchester, neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts
Read More‘thrown out of better places than this’: meaning and early occurrences
USA, 1909—a derogatory description of a specific place or occupation, typically used by somebody who is getting expelled from this specific place or occupation
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