‘au reservoir’ (‘goodbye until we meet again’)

6th March 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

A humorous alteration of ‘au revoir’ after the noun ‘reservoir’, the exclamation ‘au reservoir’ is first recorded in Little Pedlington and the Pedlingtonians (London, 1839), by the English author John Poole (1786-1872).

meaning and origin of ‘Mrs Grundy’

13th November 2017.Reading time 17 minutes.

from Speed the Plough (1798), by Thomas Morton; Dame Ashfield is constantly fearing to give occasion for the sneers of Mrs Grundy, her unseen neighbour

meaning and origin of ‘Paul Pry’

26th October 2017.Reading time 16 minutes.

UK, 1826—from the eponymous character played by John Liston in a comedy by John Poole, which premiered at the Haymarket Theatre, London, on 13th September 1825

origin of ‘all my eye and Betty Martin’

25th July 2017.Reading time 15 minutes.

second half of the 18th century—a mere fanciful extension of ‘all my eye’—maintained in a sort of artificial life by persistent conjectures about its origin