history 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 More‘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 MoreFrance, 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 MoreUK, 1952—back to where one started, with no progress having been made—refers to the game of snakes and ladders
Read Moreto 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 MoreUK, 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 MoreIrish English, 1836—mocking or condescending question addressed to a person whose behaviour is regarded as puerile or inappropriate
Read MoreUSA, 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 MoreThe 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’.
Read Moreto die; to be lost or destroyed; to meet with disaster—1914, Army slang—probably from the notion of the setting sun symbolising disappearance or finality
Read MoreUSA, 1890—at someone’s mercy—probably alludes to the practice of binding a person over an overturned barrel in order to beat them
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