“ad fontes!”
The phrase from pillar to post means from one place to another in an unceremonious or fruitless manner. Its earliest recorded form is from post to pillar in The Assembly of Gods, an anonymous dream-vision allegory most likely written in the early fourth quarter of the 15th century (it was initially attributed to John Lydgate (1370-1449) […]
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The verb to frog-march (somebody) means to force (somebody) to walk forward by holding and pinning their arms from behind. This sense is milder than the original, as the frog’s march was a police metaphor denoting a method of moving a resistant person such as a prisoner, in which he or she is lifted by […]
Read MoreMEANING The Northern Daily Mail and South Durham Herald (Hartlepool, County Durham, England) of 14th July 1894 published an article titled Naval Slang. How Jack Re-christens Things, which contains the following: The preserved meat served out to him is known as “Fanny Adams” or “Harriet Lane.” But the term Harriet Lane was also […]
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