‘all over the place like a mad woman’s [+ noun]’
Australia, 1932—a humorous extension of ‘all over the place’, which means: (literally) everywhere, in every direction, widely scattered; (figuratively) in a confused or disorganised state
Read MoreTag: military
‘to live on the smell of an oil rag’: meaning and early occurrences
to live in conditions of extreme want—Australia, 1832; Ireland and Britain, 1834; USA, 1846—in early use, the phrase frequently occurs in relation to Ireland and to the armed forces
Read More‘parting shot’ | ‘Parthian shot’
‘parting shot’ (1817); ‘Parthian shot’ (1822): a sharp, telling remark, act, gesture, etc., made in departing—‘parting shot’: literally the final shot fired at the moment of departure—‘Parthian shot’: refers to the Parthian horsemen’s habit of shooting arrows backwards while in real or pretended retreat
Read Morean Australian use of ‘boots under the bed’
has been used to denote evidence of a de facto relationship affecting a woman’s eligibility for Social-Security benefits—refers to past practices of field officers inspecting homes and bedrooms
Read More‘to be a box of birds’: meaning and origin
Australia and New Zealand, 1939—to be in good spirits, ‘chirpy’—the image is of a boxful of chirping birds (cf. the extended form ‘happy as a bird in a box of birdseed’)—New-Zealand variant ‘to be a box of fluffy ducks’, also ‘to be a box of fluffies’
Read More‘to send a boy to do a man’s work’: meaning and origin
USA, 1856—to ask someone young, ill-equipped or inexperienced to do difficult or complicated work—this phrase usually occurs in negative contexts, especially as ‘never send a boy to do a man’s work’
Read More‘can eat an apple through a picket fence’ and variants
used of a buck-toothed person—USA, 1933, as ‘can eat an apple through a picket fence’—USA, 1950, as ‘can eat an apple through a tennis racquet’—UK, 1979, as ‘can eat an apple through a letter box’
Read More‘like a dose of salts’: meaning and origin
UK, 1806—very rapidly and thoroughly—refers to a dose of aperient salts—has come to be also used in the extended form ‘like a dose of salts through + noun’
Read More‘men in buckram’: meaning and origin
1733—denotes imaginary or non-existent people—refers to John Falstaff’s vaunting tale in the First Part of King Henry the Fourth, by William Shakespeare, in which two men in buckram suits gradually become eleven
Read More‘Johnny Crapaud’: meanings and origin
UK, 1805—personifies France or the French people, or designates a typical Frenchman—composed of ‘Johnny’, a pet form of ‘John’ used, with modifying word, to designate a person of the type, group, etc., specified, and of French ‘crapaud’ (a toad)—coined by British sailors during the Napoleonic Wars
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