‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’ and variants

25th Jul 2022.Reading time 13 minutes.

The proverbial phrase ‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’, and its many variants, are used of a person who is characterised by bad luck or by an inability to be organised or prepared.

‘wouldn’t work in an iron lung’: meaning and origin

19th Feb 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

Australia, 1953—used of an extremely lazy person—refers to the artificial respirator that kept polio patients alive by “breathing” for them

notes on the phrase ‘a bastard on Father’s Day’

27th Sep 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Australia—used to express unluckiness or unhappiness—first recorded in The Four-legged Lottery (1958), by Australian novelist Frank Hardy, who later often reused it

‘the man outside Hoyt’s’: meaning and origin

13th Sep 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Australia, 1935—a person with extensive knowledge—originally the announcer outside Hoyt’s Theatre in Melbourne, Victoria, who wore a most elaborate uniform

word histories

Tag: Frank Hardy

‘if it should rain pottage, he would want his dish’ and variants

‘wouldn’t work in an iron lung’: meaning and origin

notes on the phrase ‘a bastard on Father’s Day’

‘the man outside Hoyt’s’: meaning and origin