‘to play billiards well is a sign of a misspent youth’
UK, 1884—often erroneously attributed to philosopher Herbert Spencer, who said he only repeated an assertion made by a friend of his, Charles Roupell
Read MoreTag: folk etymology
‘a bird cannot fly on one wing’: meaning and origin
USA, 1902—jocularly used to justify the necessity of taking another alcoholic drink—Irish variant (1947): ‘a bird never flew on one wing’
Read Morehistory of ‘money tree’ and ‘to shake the money tree’
‘money tree’ (UK, 1749): a source of easily obtained or unlimited money—‘to shake the money tree’ (UK, 1851)—related to proverb ‘money does not grow on trees’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘close your eyes and think of England’
France, 1954: purported advice given to English brides-to-be on how to cope with unwanted but inevitable sexual intercourse—but this occurs in a humoristic book
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘back to square one’
UK, 1952—back to where one started, with no progress having been made—refers to the game of snakes and ladders
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to come to Hecuba’
to come to the point—in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, the title role urges an actor to go straight to Hecuba’s reaction to her husband’s killing
Read More‘Charlie’s dead’ (your petticoat is showing)
UK, 1950s—used among schoolgirls when one’s petticoat was showing (origin unknown)—synonyms: ‘it’s snowing again’, ‘you’re showing next week’s washing’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘does your mother know you’re out?’
Irish English, 1836—mocking or condescending question addressed to a person whose behaviour is regarded as puerile or inappropriate
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’
USA, 1884—a person whose lack of courage is as real as it appears to be—jocular variant of ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’—often misattributed to Winston Churchill
Read MoreWhy ‘island’ and ‘aisle’ ought to be spelt ‘iland’ and ‘aile’.
The letter ‘s’ in both the nouns currently spelt ‘island’ and ‘aisle’ is due to folk-etymological association of those words with the unrelated noun ‘isle’.
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