“ad fontes!”
A humorous alteration of ‘au revoir’ after the noun ‘reservoir’, the exclamation ‘au reservoir’ is first recorded in Little Pedlington and the Pedlingtonians (London, 1839), by the English author John Poole (1786-1872).
Read MoreOriginally, the mother was the object of ‘deliver’, the image was of delivering (freeing) her from the burden of pregnancy. Nowadays, the healthcare provider or the mother is the subject, the image is of delivering (handing over) the baby, as if it were a package.
Read MoreBritish English, first recorded, apparently as army slang, in 1945—probably from ‘bonk’ (= a blow on the head) and the suffix ‘-ers’ as in ‘ravers’ (from ‘raving mad’) and ‘starkers’ (from ‘stark mad’)
Read More‘Glamour’ was originally a Scottish alteration of ‘grammar’: this article explains how it came to denote an attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing. Classical Greek γραμματική (= grammatikḗ) and classical Latin grammătĭca denoted the methodical study of literature, that is to say, philology in the widest modern sense, including textual […]
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some characteristic slang creations of the British, U.S. and French soldiers during World War One, as recorded in ‘Trench Talk’, published in Everybody’s Magazine (New York) of January 1918
Read MoreAn 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.
Read MoreEtymologically, a jewel is a little game, a little plaything: ‘jewel’ is from a French diminutive of ‘jeu’, meaning ‘a game’, ‘a play’. The word ‘bijou’ is from Breton ‘bizou’, meaning ‘a finger-ring’, from ‘biz’, ‘finger’.
Read MoreThe English noun ‘pound’ is from Latin ‘pondō’, short for ‘lībra pondō’, literally ‘a pound’ (= ‘lībra’) ‘by weight’ (= ‘pondō’)—Latin ‘lībra’ meant ‘the Roman pound of twelve ounces’, and ‘pondō’ was a form of ‘pondus’, meaning ‘weight’.
Read MoreEtymologically, ‘Shrovetide’ denotes the period during which it was customary to attend confession in preparation for Lent—but this period was also marked by feasting before the Lenten fast.
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UK, ‘greengrocer’s apostrophe’ – ‘apostrofly’: the mistaken use of an apostrophe, especially its insertion before the final ‘s’ of an ordinary plural form
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word histories 