‘antwacky’: meaning and origin
UK, 1975—old-fashioned; out of date—perhaps a humorous alteration of the adjective ‘antique’, perhaps punningly after the adjective ‘wacky’—or perhaps derived from ‘Ann Twack’, rhyming slang for ‘crap’
Read MoreTag: Liverpool
a Liverpudlian phrase: ‘don’t forget the diver’
1923—from Bernard Pykett’s plea when asking for money after his diving exhibitions—popularised from 1941 onwards by the BBC radio comedy programme It’s That Man Again
Read Moremeaning and origin of Scouse ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’
1968—Liverpool Roman Catholic cathedral—from the large number of Roman Catholics of Irish descent in Liverpool and the resemblance of the cathedral to a tepee
Read Moreorigin of ‘Scouse’ (Liverpudlian)
The original sense of ‘Scouse’, denoting a person from Liverpool, is ‘a stew’. The word ‘scouse’ is in turn a shortening of ‘lobscouse’, of obscure origin.
Read More
word histories 