“ad fontes!”
1777, in a translation of a letter written by Voltaire in 1768—a loan translation from French ‘l’histoire n’est qu’une fable convenue’, first used in 1758 by the French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius
Read MoreUK, 1935—jocular—is used by a man to defer his sexual duties to a wife or lover; is also applied to any postponement—translation of the earlier phrase ‘not tonight, Josephine’
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USA, 1904—a jocular phrase apparently originally applied to any postponement—of unknown origin
Read Moreto be utterly defeated—alludes to the defeat of Napoléon I at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815—UK, 1832, as ‘to meet with a Waterloo’—USA, 1838, as ‘to meet one’s Waterloo’
Read More1815—inner ruthlessness and determination disguised in outward gentleness and courtesy—loan translation from French ‘une main de fer dans un gant de velours’ (1814)
Read Moreto discuss an essentially private matter, especially a dispute or scandal, in public—UK, 1819—loan translation from French ‘laver son linge sale en public’, originated by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814
Read More(literally) to sit at a table; (figuratively) to establish oneself firmly in a situation—‘to put one’s feet under the same table with somebody’: (literally) to sit at a table with somebody; (figuratively) to associate oneself with somebody
Read Moresoldiers regarded simply as material to be expended in war—‘cannon fodder’ (1847), said to have been coined after German ‘Kanonenfutter’—French ‘chair à canon’ (1814), first used in reference to Napoléon Bonaparte
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