“ad fontes!”
USA, 1929: to force someone into a situation from which it is not easy to escape—the image is of someone who is painting a floor and ends up in a corner of the room with wet paint all around them (USA, 1913)
Read MoreUK & Ireland—a shop that sells a wide range of goods at low prices, typically one pound or less—hence also: of the type or quality found in a pound shop, cheap, second-rate
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Ireland & Britain, 1850—a person who goes round the streets in the early morning to awaken factory hands—from ‘to knock somebody up’, meaning ‘to awaken somebody by knocking at the door’
Read More‘extremely poor’—USA, 1810—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
Read More‘extremely poor’—USA, 1817—humorous variant of ‘(as) poor as Job’, from the name of the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken as the type of extreme poverty
Read MoreUK, 1950, as ‘old boy net’—a system of favouritism and preferment operating among people of a similar social, usually privileged, background, especially among former pupils of public schools
Read MoreIreland, 1989—treatment given to hospital patients in overcrowded and inappropriate spaces such as corridors and waiting rooms—had been used earlier (UK, 1980) of treatment given to schoolchildren
Read Morea movement, developed in the U.S.S.R. in 1935, aimed at encouraging hard work and maximum output, following the example of Alexei Stakhanov—by extension: exceptionally productive work, excessively intensive work
Read MoreAustralia, 1943—a foolish or silly person—from the synonymous noun ‘dill’ (1933), itself apparently a back-formation from the adjective ‘dilly’, meaning ‘foolish’, ‘silly’
Read MoreUK—the noun ‘pig’s ear’ is colloquially used to designate a mess, a botched job—probably a euphemism for ‘pig’s arse’
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word histories 