“ad fontes!”
very stupid—popularised by Jethro Tull’s ‘Thick as a Brick’ (1972), but already existed—in early use (19th century) applied to nouns such as ‘skull’ and ‘head’, used metonymically for ‘intelligence’
Read MoreUSA, 1815—not completely well; slightly ill or depressed—the image is of a ship caught in a storm (the noun ‘weather’ has long been used to denote a storm)
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USA, 1969—the 1964 Lincoln Continental specially built and equipped for Pope Paul VI’s 1965 visit to the United States
Read MoreUK, 1810—tenacious, persistent, obstinate—unwilling to yield, to relent or to let go—unable to set aside a preoccupation or obsession—the image is that a dog with a bone will not let go of that bone, no matter what
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literally (UK, 1876): a victory in a tennis match, secured by winning the deciding game of the last set required to win—in extended use (UK, 1906): a complete and decisive victory
Read MoreUSA, 1913: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, USA, 1874: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
Read MoreUSA, 1927: a minority group regarded as eccentric, extremist or fanatical, or simply stupid—but originally, UK, 1873: a woman or girl’s hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead
Read MoreU.S. slang, 1935—a photograph of a person’s face, especially in police or other official records—from ‘mug’ (a person’s face) and ‘shot’ (a single photographic exposure)
Read Moresexual intercourse—Scotland, 1968—reduplication (with variation of the initial consonant and addition of the suffix ‘-y’) of the noun ‘rump’, denoting a person’s buttocks
Read Morea woman’s topless swimsuit, consisting of the lower half of a bikini—from the prefix ‘mono-’ and ‘-kini’ in ‘bikini’, reinterpreted as containing the prefix ‘bi-’—coined in 1946 by French clothing designer Louis Réard
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