“ad fontes!”
UK, 1851—a person (or persons) or a thing (or things) considered unattractive, inferior or unpleasant, compared to others of the same type or group—alludes to Cinderella’s ugly and unpleasant stepsisters in the fairy tale Cinderella
Read MoreUSA, 1815—a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead
Read Morea sly, treacherous or deceitful person, especially one who is secretly acting against the interests of the community or organisation to which he or she belongs—mid-19th century
Read MoreUK, 1907: ‘to ghostwrite’ (to write a book, an article, etc., for another person, under whose name it is then published—USA, 1908: ‘ghostwriter’ (a person who ghostwrites)
Read Moreoriginally (1830): the rule, or the power, of paper money (as opposed to metallic currency)—later also (1940): the rule, or the power, of bureaucracy
Read Morethe returns from an activity or undertaking do not warrant the time, money or effort required—calque of French ‘le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle’—1603, in John Florio’s translation of Montaigne’s Essays
Read Morethe benefits of an endeavour are enough to outweigh the effort of pursuing it—USA, 1959—refers to the labour-intensive process of squeezing fruit to produce fresh juice
Read Moresubsistence-level living—UK, 1833—since the 17th century, ‘bread and cheese’ has been used attributively to mean: ordinary, simple, basic
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a fine kind of green tea, each leaf of which is rolled up into a pellet—UK, 1767—refers to the resemblance of the pellets to granules of gunpowder
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USA, 1949—a person (originally and chiefly a girl or a woman) who is especially talkative—popularised from 1960 onwards by a proprietary name for a child’s talking doll manufactured by Mattel
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word histories 