How ‘blue Monday’ came to denote a gloomy Monday.

20th Jan 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

A calque of German ‘blauer Montag’, ‘blue Monday’ originally denoted a Monday on which people chose not to work as a result of excessive indulgence over the course of the weekend. Under the influence of the adjective ‘blue’ in the sense ‘dismal’, it came to denote a Monday that is depressing or trying.

original meaning of ‘to see the elephant’

14th Jan 2018.Reading time 13 minutes.

U.S.—‘to see the elephant’: to see life, the world or the sights, as of a large city, to gain knowledge by experience. But in 1842, the original meaning of ‘to see the elephant’ was ‘to get sick and tired of something’.

‘couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery’

13th Jan 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

In British slang, the noun ‘piss-up’ denotes ‘a heavy drinking bout’, and the phrase ‘couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery’ and variants mean ‘is’, or ‘are’, or ‘am’, ‘incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.’—phrase first recorded in 1980.

The literal meaning of ‘cappuccino’ is ‘Capuchin’.

1st Jan 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

USA, 1948—espresso coffee mixed with steamed milk—borrowed from Italian ‘cappuccino’, literally ‘Capuchin’, because the colour of this type of coffee resembles that of a Capuchin’s habit—cf. French ‘capucin’ (= ‘Capuchin’), a name for the hare, from the colour of the animal’s fur

‘beer o’clock’: 5 p.m. as the end of the working day

24th Dec 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

The original meaning of beer o’clock is 5 p.m. as the end of the working day. Its first known user was Stephen King (born 1947), American author of novels of horror and suspense.

the probable origin of ‘one over the eight’ (‘one drink too many’)

16th Dec 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

UK, 1919—possibly a mere euphemism for having too much to drink, regardless of the actual number of drinks that have been consumed (‘eight’ probably arbitrary)

mistaken etymology of ‘not to give a XXXX’ in the Oxford English Dictionary

10th Dec 2017.Reading time 11 minutes.

UK, 1972—‘XXXX’: a euphemistic substitute for a four-letter swear word, usually ‘fuck’—it did not originally refer to the Australian lager Castlemaine XXXX

origin of the British phrase ‘to go for a burton’

3rd Dec 2017.Reading time 11 minutes.

to meet with disaster; to be ruined, destroyed or killed—UK, 1941, RAF slang: (of an airman) to be killed—perhaps from ‘to go for a drink (of Burton ale)’

origin of the phrase ‘good wine needs no bush’

2nd Dec 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

first recorded in ‘As You Like It’, by Shakespeare—from the former practice of hanging a branch or bunch of ivy as a vintner’s sign in front of a tavern

‘to take the mickey out of someone’: meaning and origin

27th Nov 2017.Reading time 22 minutes.

UK, 1891—‘to take the mickey (or ‘the mike’) out of’: ‘to tease or ridicule’—probably after ‘Mickey (or ‘Mike’) Bliss’, rhyming slang for ‘piss’

word histories

Tag: drinks