The first ‘public enemy number one’ was Al Capone.
origin: the American gangster Al Capone was number one on the list of 26 ‘public enemies’ drawn up in 1930 by the Chicago crime commission.
Read MoreTag: economics
origin of ‘flexible friend’ (credit card)
early 1980s—originated in “Access. Your flexible friend”, advertising slogan for the Access credit card, which played on the notion that repayment was flexible
Read More‘adultescent’ and its synonyms
blend of ‘adult’ and ‘adolescent’: adult who has retained the interests, behaviour or lifestyle of adolescence — origin USA, first attested in 1945
Read Moreorigin of ‘Boxing Day’ (the first weekday after Christmas Day)
from the verb ‘box’, ‘to give a Christmas-box’, i.e. to give a gratuity or present to tradespeople and employees—originally a box in which money was collected
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to make (both) ends meet’
To make (both) ends meet means to earn just enough money to live on. It is first recorded in The History of the Worthies of England (1662), by the Church of England clergyman Thomas Fuller (1607/8-61). The author wrote the following about the English Protestant leader Edmund Grindal (1519-83) – in the original text, to […]
Read More‘money for old rope’: meanings and origin
The phrase money for old rope has various meanings: a profitable return for little or no trouble; a very easy job; a person or thing easy to profit from or to beat. The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I have found is from Driffield Coursing Club. “Peter Delmas” in the genial crowd, published in The Daily Mail (Hull, Yorkshire, England) […]
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the penny dropped’
used to indicate that someone has finally realised something—UK, 1931—alluded originally to the mechanism of a penny-in-the-slot machine
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘to buy a pig in a poke’
In this expression, the noun poke denotes a bag, a small sack. It is from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French forms such as poke and pouque, variants of the Old French forms poche and pouche — the last of which is the origin of English pouch. (Incidentally, English pocket is from Anglo-Norman poket, pokete, diminutive forms of poke.) The expression to buy a pig in a poke simply cautions against buying or accepting […]
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘to let the cat out of the bag’
The phrase to let the cat out of the bag means to disclose a secret. Although it is possible that to let the cat out of the bag originally referred to some specific allusion, such as a line in a play, that has now been lost, it is probable that this phrase is simply based on the […]
Read Morea hypothesis as to the origin of ‘to pay through the nose’
MEANING to pay excessively, to be charged exorbitantly PROBABLE ORIGIN The expression to pay through the nose is first recorded in Piazza universale di proverbi Italiani, or, A common place of Italian proverbs and proverbial phrases digested in alphabetical order (1666), by Giovanni Torriano (floruit 1640): Oft-times Rich men engrossing commodities, will make one pay through the […]
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