‘to go to Peg Trantum’s’ (to go to one’s death)

8th February 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

First recorded in 1694, ‘Peg Tantrum’ was chiefly used in the phrase ‘to go to Peg Trantum’s’, meaning ‘to go to one’s death’. This word is perhaps from ‘Peg’, rhyming form of ‘Meg’, pet form of the female forenames ‘Margery’ and ‘Margaret’, and from ‘tantrum’.

origin of ‘don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar’

13th October 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

from ‘to lose a sheep for a halfpennyworth of tar’—refers to the use of tar to protect sores and wounds on sheep from flies (‘sheep’ was pronounced ‘ship’)

a curious case of misunderstanding in the Oxford English Dictionary

5th September 2017.Reading time 9 minutes.

‘Wash the milk off your liver’: refers to the digestibility of milk, but misunderstood by the Oxford English Dictionary as referring to cowardice

meaning and origin of the phrase ‘to have a bee in one’s bonnet’

17th June 2017.Reading time 14 minutes.

This phrase is a transformation of ‘one’s head full of bees’, meaning scatter-brained, unable to think straight, as if bees are buzzing around in one’s head.

meaning and origin of ‘Hogs Norton’

28th March 2017.Reading time 15 minutes.

Light Programme 12.0, Family Favourites; 1.30, Mr. Gillie Potter, Sage of Hogsnorton from B.B.C. Sunday – The Derry Journal (Ireland) – 28th March 1952 The name Hogs Norton, also Hog’s Norton and Hogsnorton, denotes a fictional town renowned for its uncultured and boorish inhabitants. It has often been used in depreciative phrases suggesting that […]

meaning and origin of the phrase ‘as cold as charity’

27th December 2016.Reading time 4 minutes.

The phrase (as) cold as charity refers to the perfunctory, unfeeling manner in which acts of charity are often done, and public charities administered. It originally alluded to the gospel of Matthew, 24:12, which is as follows in the Early Version (around 1382) of the Wycliffe Bible (wexe is the verb wax and […]

origin of ‘like a cat on hot bricks/on a hot tin roof’

5th December 2016.Reading time 7 minutes.

poster for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), an American film directed by Richard Brooks, based on the play by Tennessee Williams The phrase like a cat on hot bricks and its American-English equivalent like a cat on a hot tin roof mean very agitated or anxious. An earlier form of the […]

origin of ‘one swallow does not make a summer’

24th October 2016.Reading time 9 minutes.

photograph: Wikimedia Commons/Thermos MEANING a single fortunate event doesn’t mean that what follows will also be good ORIGIN The annual migration of swallows to Europe from southern climes at the end of winter was the subject of a proverb in Ancient Greece: μία χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ, in which […]