origin of ‘the world is my oyster’
refers to the possibility of finding a pearl in an oyster—coined by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor, perhaps in allusion to a proverb
Read MoreTag: food
sexual origin of ‘merrythought’ (‘wishbone’)
‘merrythought’, late 16th century— the forked bone between the neck and breast of a bird—so called from its resemblance to a woman’s external genitals
Read Morethe making of ‘omelette’
1611—from French ‘omelette’, ultimately an alteration of ‘lemelle’, ‘knife blade’ (from Latin ‘lamella’), with reference to the flattened shape of the dish
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘let’s return to our muttons’
to return to the matter in hand—from French ‘revenons à nos moutons’ (‘let’s return to our sheep’), allusion to ‘La Farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin’ (ca 1457)
Read Moremeaning and early instances of ‘small potatoes’
USA, early 19th century—‘small potatoes’: person or thing considered petty, unimportant, insignificant or worthless
Read Moreorigin of ‘Froggy’ (French)
mid-19th cent.—perhaps from a specific application of the general term of abuse ‘Frog’, aided by the shared initial consonant cluster in ‘French’ and ‘frog’
Read Moremeanings and origin of ‘small beer’
‘small beer’: ‘person(s) or matter(s) of little or no importance’ (first use by Shakespeare), from the literal sense ‘beer of a weak, poor or inferior quality’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘neither fish nor fowl’
Origin: for purposes of fasting, food was divided into categories – ‘fish’, the flesh of fish, ‘flesh’, the flesh of land-animals, ‘fowl’, the flesh of birds.
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘carrot and stick’
early 20th century—refers to the method of tempting a donkey to move forward by dangling a carrot before it, and beating it with a stick if it refuses
Read More‘beanfeast’, ‘beano’: meaning and origin
‘beano’, abbreviation of ‘beanfeast’: an enjoyable time; originally an annual dinner, given by employers to employees, or held by organisations or clubs
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word histories 