“ad fontes!”
MEANING of payments: without delay ORIGIN This expression refers to the fingernail and might originally have alluded to drinking fair and square. A clue might be provided by the French phrase payer rubis sur l’ongle (literally to pay ruby on the fingernail), which means to pay exactly what is due. (A variant, used by prostitutes, was rubis sur pieu, […]
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The phrase (as) happy (or jolly) as a sandboy means extremely happy or carefree—cf. also happy as a clam and happy as Larry. A sandboy was a boy hawking sand for sale. It seems that the earliest use of the word is The Rider and Sand-boy: a Tale, the title of a poem written by a certain Mr Meyler and published in Harvest-Home in 1805: […]
Read MoreThe noun pastis designates an aniseed-flavoured aperitif, while pastiche, or pasticcio, denotes a work of art that imitates the style of another artist or period and a work of art that mixes styles, materials, etc. Unlikely as it may seem, these words are doublets, or etymological twins: although they differ in form and meaning, they go […]
Read MoreUSA, 1881—seems to have originated in the image of a torchlit procession or/and of a firework display that illuminate(s) a town
Read MoreThe adjective piping hot is used to refer to very hot food or liquid, usually when served. It referred originally to the hissing of viands in the frying pan, the verb pipe meaning, in this case, to make a whistling sound. This adjective is first attested in The Miller’s Tale, by the English poet Geoffrey […]
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