‘in the pudding club’: meaning and origin
UK, 1890—pregnant—refers to “the bulging puddinglike appearance of a pregnant woman”
Read MoreTag: James Curtis (Geoffrey Basil Maiden)
‘a load of cobblers’: meaning and origin
UK, 1955—‘cobblers’, short for ‘cobbler’s (or cobblers’) awls’, is rhyming slang for ‘balls’, i.e., ‘testicles’, and figuratively ‘nonsense’, ‘rubbish’
Read More‘Flypaper Act’ | ‘to be under, or on, the flypaper’
UK slang, 1906—‘Flypaper Act’: the Prevention of Crimes Act—‘to be under, or on, the flypaper’: to be subject to the Prevention of Crimes Act
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘to box clever’
UK, 1935—to conduct oneself adroitly (‘clever’: adverb meaning ‘skilfully’)—originated in boxing
Read Morethe sexual meanings of ‘crumpet’ in British English
women regarded collectively as objects of sexual desire; sexual intercourse—first recorded in ‘The Gilt Kid’ (1936), by James Curtis (Geoffrey Basil Maiden)
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