how words and phrases came into existence
Originally, the mother was the object of ‘deliver’, the image was of delivering (freeing) her from the burden of pregnancy. Nowadays, the healthcare provider or the mother is the subject, the image is of delivering (handing over) the baby, as if it were a package.
Read MoreFirst 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’.
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Swiss-French ‘crestin’ (= ‘Christian’): in certain valleys of the Alps, a mentally deficient, deformed person suffering from a congenital thyroid deficiency
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The word ‘folklore’ was coined in 1846 by the British author William John Thoms, inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s anthology of German fairy tales.
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Sgt Francis J. Kilroy’s surname, first written in 1943 by his friend Sgt James Maloney (source: Army Public Relations, in the Tucson Daily Citizen, 8 Nov. 1945)
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first recorded at Kearns air force base and Salt Lake City, both in Utah, in June and July 1945; originally seen merely as an amusing legend
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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
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With words denoting some specified deficiency in a desirable or standard quantity of something, ‘short of a ——’ means ‘mentally deficient’, ‘slightly crazy’.
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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’)
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late Middle English—early form of ‘Bethlehem’, originally referring to the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, used as an institution for the insane
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