meaning and origin of the football term ‘Tartan army’
England, 1971—(informal, humorous) the fans of the Scottish football team, considered as a group
Read MoreTag: Ireland
meaning and origin of the phrase ‘alarums and excursions’
confused activity and uproar—alludes to the frequent collocation of ‘alarum’ and ‘excursion’ in stage directions in Shakespearean drama
Read Moremeanings and early instances of ‘alive and kicking’
UK, 1807—(of someone) active and in good health—(of something) prevalent and very active
Read Morethe coinage of an Irish political term: ‘whataboutery’
1974—coined by the Irish journalist John Healy with reference to the Troubles in Northern Ireland
Read Moreorigin 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 Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘like the clappers’
very fast, or very hard—UK, 1942, RAF slang—alludes to the moving metal piece within a bell, which strikes it and produces the sound
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘belt and braces’–‘belt and suspenders’
UK, 1948—USA, 1952—from the image of the over-cautious man who wears both a belt and braces/suspenders to hold up his trousers
Read Moreorigin of the Scottish and Irish phrase ‘on the buroo’ (‘on the dole’)
Scotland, 1914: ‘buroo’, informal form of ‘bureau’ (generic sense)—later used specifically in the sense of Labour Bureau, hence of unemployment benefit (1921)
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘tall poppy’
UK, 1816—successful person attracting envious hostility—from Tarquin’s decapitation of the tallest poppies to indicate the fate of enemies
Read More‘curiosity killed the cat’: meaning and origin
1868, but late 16th century as ‘care [= disquiet] killed a cat’—the image is perhaps that disquiet would exhaust the nine lives allotted to a cat
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