the magic million target
UK, 1883—The word ‘million’ in itself has something magic about it, and the belief exists that a special reward awaits the person who collects a million bus tickets, or a million used postage stamps, etc.
Read MoreUK, 1883—The word ‘million’ in itself has something magic about it, and the belief exists that a special reward awaits the person who collects a million bus tickets, or a million used postage stamps, etc.
Read Moregained currency from its use by Magnus Magnusson on the BBC-Television quiz programme ‘Mastermind’, which he presented from its creation in 1972 until 1997
Read Moreused of a person whose display of distress misleads others into underestimating this distress—UK, 1962—from ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ (1954), by Stevie Smith
Read Moremeaning: ‘for a very long time’—UK, 1944—with a pun on ‘Pilate’, originated in the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War
Read Morechat-up line—from ‘Tell me, pretty maiden (I must love some one)’, a song of the musical comedy ‘Florodora’, produced in Britain in 1899 and in the USA in 1900
Read More1961—to be all talk and no action—originally without the negative determiner ‘no’—refers to verbal and sexual arrogance
Read Morethree red tops: the Daily Mirror, The Sun, the Daily Star In the following, the noun tabloid has the sense of a newspaper having pages half the size of those of the average broadsheet, aimed at the mass market, with relatively little serious political or economic content but considerable amounts of sport, celebrity gossip, scandal and trivial […]
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