‘bedside manner’: originally applied to fashionable ladies’ doctors
UK, 1849—in the medical profession, appearances, among which a good bedside manner, prevailed over qualifications
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origin of the Irish-English phrase ‘up the pole’ (‘pregnant’)
probably refers to pregnancy as an awkward condition, the image being apparently of an uncomfortable position at the top of a pole
Read Moreorigin of ‘to [verb] the living daylights out of somebody’
The adjective ‘living’ is an intensifier, and ‘daylights’ is an 18th-century slang term for ‘eyes’ chiefly used in contexts of physical violence or threats.
Read More‘to go bald-headed’ (to rush without care or caution)
first recorded in The Biglow Papers (1848), by American author James Russell Lowell—based on the notion of leaving one’s hat behind in a rush of impetuosity
Read Morethe Communist origin of ‘to vote with one’s feet’
UK, 1934—image said to have been first used by Lenin about the Russian soldiers who were abandoning the war during the Russian Revolution of 1917
Read More‘to have straws in one’s hair’: meaning and origin
to be insane—late 19th century—originated in the fact that in 19th-century productions of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, Ophelia appeared with straws in her hair in her ‘mad scene’
Read Moreorigin of ‘to know where the bodies are buried’
‘to know where the bodies are buried’: to have personal knowledge of the secrets or confidential affairs of an organisation or individual—USA, 1928, as ‘to know where the body is buried’
Read Morethe British phrase ‘to talk the hind leg off a donkey’
1808, as ‘to talk a horse’s hind leg off’—‘[animal’s] hind leg off’ is probably a hyperbolic extension of ‘to talk’, emphasising the speaker’s persistence or eloquence
Read Moreadolescence: ‘the awkward age’ – ‘l’âge ingrat’
UK, 1832—‘the awkward age’: the adolescence, when one is no longer a child but not yet properly grown up, a time of life characterised by physical and emotional changes—translates in French as ‘l’âge ingrat’, ‘the thankless age’
Read Morean American phrase for a British trait: ‘a stiff upper lip’
‘a stiff upper lip’: a quality of uncomplaining stoicism—now understood as referring to what is believed to be a quintessentially British trait, the repression of emotion, but originated in fact in North America (USA, 1811)
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