meaning and origin of the phrase “’arf a mo’, Kaiser!”
“half a moment, Kaiser!”—1914 as the caption to a drawing by Bert Thomas, published in the Weekly Dispatch (London) to advertise a tobacco fund for soldiers
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history of the British noun ‘hole in the wall’ (ATM)
1980—an automated teller machine installed in the wall of a bank or other building—first used attributively of machines operated by Lloyds Bank
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘given away with a pound of tea’
UK, 1881—used of something considered tawdry—from the grocers’ former practice of making a free gift with every pound of tea or with any fair-sized order
Read Morehistory of the British name ‘Chalkie White’
1973—a mystery man the Daily Mirror has challenged its readers to identify in order to claim prize money—‘Chalkie’ typical epithet for people surnamed ‘White’
Read Morenotes on the phrase ‘a licence to print money’
North America, 1943: used of owners of professional baseball teams—Britain, 1958: used of the franchises granted for running commercial television stations
Read More‘are there any more at home like you?’: usage and origin
chat-up line—from ‘Tell me, pretty maiden (I must love some one)’, a song of the musical comedy ‘Florodora’, produced in Britain in 1899 and in the USA in 1900
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘stop me and buy one’
UK, 1920s—refers to a person going from one place to another with something to sell—from the slogan on the box-tricycles selling Wall’s Ice Cream
Read More‘gizza job’: a phrase of the mass-unemployment age
‘give us a job’—UK, 1983—used by Yosser Hughes, a character in Boys from the Blackstuff (1982), a BBC TV drama series on the desperation bred by unemployment
Read Morethe birth of an American phrase: ‘Where’s the beef?’
January 1984—from a television advertisement for the hamburger chain Wendy’s, in which an elderly lady demands where the beef is in a huge hamburger bun
Read Moreearly occurrences of the phrase ‘a nail in the coffin’
something that hastens, or contributes to, the end of the person or thing referred to—USA, 1805 in an open letter by the English political writer Thomas Paine
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