How ‘blue Monday’ came to denote a gloomy Monday.

20th January 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

A calque of German ‘blauer Montag’, ‘blue Monday’ originally denoted a Monday on which people chose not to work as a result of excessive indulgence over the course of the weekend. Under the influence of the adjective ‘blue’ in the sense ‘dismal’, it came to denote a Monday that is depressing or trying.

origin of ‘dada’ (‘hobby’) and ‘Dada’ (artistic movement)

6th January 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

The 1776 French translation of Laurence Sterne’s ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy’ gave to French ‘dada’, a child’s noun for ‘horse’, the figurative meaning of ‘favourite pastime’ or ‘pet idea’.

‘hobby’, originally a diminutive of ‘Hob’, pet form of ‘Robert’

4th January 2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

‘Hobby’, diminutive of ‘Hob’, pet form of ‘Robert’, was used to denote a small horse, hence a child’s toy with a horse’s head, hence a favourite occupation—cf. French ‘dada’, child’s word for horse, used to denote a favourite pastime

a WWI phrase: ‘san fairy ann’ (‘that doesn’t matter’)

31st December 2017.Reading time 7 minutes.

An expression of indifference to, or resigned acceptance of, a state of affairs, ‘san fairy ann’ jocularly represents the French phrase ‘ça ne fait rien’, meaning ‘that doesn’t matter’. It originated in army use on the Western Front during the First World War.

the disputed origin of ‘tantrum’

30th December 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

18th century—origin unknown—perhaps originally imitative and comparable to, or derived from, ‘tantara’, denoting the sound of a trumpet, hence an uproar—or from obsolete French ‘trantran’, synonym of ‘tantara’

the liturgical origin of ‘Quasimodo’

28th November 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

in full ‘Quasimodo Sunday’: the Sunday after Easter—from the opening words of the Latin introit for that day, ‘quasimodo geniti infantes’, ‘as newborn babies’

‘ladybird’: the Virgin Mary’s beetle

26th November 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

The ladybird was so named on account of its seven spots, which were popularly believed to symbolise the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary.

the creation of the word ‘folklore’

24th November 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

The word ‘folklore’ was coined in 1846 by the British author William John Thoms, inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s anthology of German fairy tales.

the uncertain origin of the word ‘cockney’

22nd November 2017.Reading time 13 minutes.

originally ‘pampered child’, later ‘town-dweller regarded as affected or puny’—origin uncertain—probably not the same word as ‘cokeney’, literally ‘cock’s egg’

meaning and origin of ‘spick and span’

19th October 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

mid-17th cent. in the sense ‘brand new’—from ‘spick and span new’, extension of ‘span new’, from Old Norse ‘spán-nýr’, ‘as new as a freshly cut wooden chip’