the emergence of the political term ‘whataboutism’ in 1978
The Guardian, UK, 23 May 1978—used by one Lionel Bloch to designate—and denounce—the rhetoric employed by the advocates of the communist regimes
Read MoreTag: grammar
origin and sense development of Anglo-Irish ‘bejesus’
1825, Anglo-Irish alteration of ‘by Jesus’—1867 as one word—‘the bejesus out of’ (1931) intensifies the action conveyed by the preceding verb
Read Morelinguistic notes on the ‘one’ in ‘alone’ and ‘only’
Why is the element one in words such as alone and only not pronounced like the numeral one? Both the indefinite article an (a before consonant) and the numeral one are from Old English ān—which has survived in Scotland as ane, used both as indefinite article and as numeral. This Old-English word ān meant a/an, one, […]
Read Morethe curious case of ‘rob’/‘robe’ and of French ‘voler’ (‘to fly’/‘to steal’)
‘robe’ originally denoted something that has been robbed—French ‘voler’ (‘to fly’) has come to mean ‘to steal’ via falconry
Read Moremeaning and early instances of ‘memory lane’
an imaginary path through the nostalgically remembered past—USA, 1876, as ‘memory’s lane’ (‘memory’ in the genitive)
Read Morean investigation into the origin of the portmanteau word ‘bankster’
USA, 1931—presented as being of French origin, but French earliest known uses, in 1933, are from American English
Read Morethe American-English origin of the phrase ‘like greased lightning’
denotes extreme quickness of movement—the use of ‘greased’ likens lightning to a machine that a mechanic has lubricated in order to minimise the friction and make it run easily
Read Moreorigin of ‘avoirdupois’: goods sold by weight
from Old French and Anglo-Norman ‘aveir de peis’, ‘goods of weight’, as distinguished from the goods sold by measure or number
Read Morethe authentic—and simple—origin of ‘sleep tight’
In the phrase ‘sleep tight’ (USA, 1873), the adjective ‘tight’ is used as an adverb meaning ‘soundly’, i.e. ‘deeply and without disturbance’, as in the combination ‘tight asleep’ (USA, 1847).
Read More‘urbi et orbi’ (‘to the city (of Rome) and to the world’)
from classical Latin ‘urbī’, dative of ‘urbs’ (city), and ‘orbī’, dative of ‘orbis’ (orb, circle)—in classical Latin, ‘orbis terrarum’, ‘orbis terrae’, the orb, or circle, of the earth, meant by extension the world, since the ancients regarded the earth as a circular plane or disk
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