meaning and origin of ‘little Audrey joke’
a joke involving a pun or double entendre opening with ‘but little Audrey just laughed and laughed because she knew’—January 1926, Kansas City Star (Missouri)
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meaning and origin of the phrase ‘to light the (blue) touchpaper’
UK, mid-1950s—to set a course of exciting or dramatic events in motion—refers to firework instructions such as ‘light the blue touchpaper and retire immediately’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘(all) dressed (up) like a Christmas tree’
Britain and USA, early 1900s: over-elaborately dressed—since the mid-19th century, ‘like a Christmas tree’: overelaborateness, heterogeneousness, artificiality
Read Morethe birth of an American phrase: ‘Where’s the beef?’
January 1984—from a television advertisement for the hamburger chain Wendy’s, in which an elderly lady demands where the beef is in a huge hamburger bun
Read Morethe origin and various meanings of ‘Macready pause’
UK, 1842—theatre: a long pause during the delivery of a speech—refers to the English actor William Macready (1793-1873), who was given to making long pauses
Read Moremeanings of the Irish-English phrase ‘like snuff at a wake’
1844—various senses, especially ‘hither and thither’ and ‘lavishly’—from the custom of sharing snuff during a vigil held beside the body of someone who has died
Read More1806: earliest definition of ‘cocktail’ (mixed drink with a spirit base)
13 May 1806—The Balance, and Columbian Repository (Hudson, New York, USA)—“a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters”
Read Morenotes on the second-earliest mentions of a drink called ‘cocktail’
USA, 1803—associated with a lounger—precise meaning of ‘cocktail’ is not defined, but the word denotes an alcoholic drink apparently taken as hair of the dog
Read Moremeaning and history of ‘spring forward, fall back’
USA, 1936—serves as a mnemonic for remembering to set the clocks when daylight-saving time comes into effect and when it ends
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘ugly American’
USA, 1958—an American who behaves offensively abroad—refers to The Ugly American, a 1958 novel denouncing the U.S. Foreign Service in Southeast Asia
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