“ad fontes!”
Literally denoting a mouse which lives in a church, the noun church mouse has long been used figuratively and allusively of a person likened to such a mouse, in terms of its proverbial attributes, especially in being impoverished or quiet. For example, the Anglo-Welsh historian and political writer James Howell (circa 1594-1666) recorded the following […]
Read MoreIn the United Kingdom, especially in the mid-1950s, a Teddy boy was a young man characterised by a style of dress and appearance held to be characteristic of Edward VII’s reign (1901-10), typically a long velvet-collared jacket, drainpipe trousers and sideburns (Teddy is a pet form of Edward (VII)). The term first appeared in print […]
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Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. […]
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Huntsmen still use stirrup cup to designate an alcoholic drink offered to riders either as they are about to depart or when they return. Mr. Barry Puilan, Master of the East Antrim Hounds, hands a stirrup cup to huntsman Jack Taylor during the meet at Trench Hill, Ballyeaston, yesterday. from The Northern Whig and Belfast […]
Read MoreThe noun marrowsky, which has also been spelt Marouski, Marowsky, morowski and mowrowsky, denotes a variety of slang, or a slip in speaking, characterised by the transposition of the initial letters or syllables of two words. The more usual term is spoonerism (cf. also malapropism and eggcorn). The word is first recorded in the verbal form Marrowskying in […]
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Like Jack, pet form of John, Joe, familiar abbreviation of Joseph, is colloquially used as a generic term for a lad, a fellow, a chap. And, like Joe Blow, Joe Citizen, Joe Doakes and Joe Six-Pack in American English, Joe Soap and Joe Bloggs in British English are generic names for an average man. —Cf. also Onion Johnny. These are the earliest […]
Read MoreThe colloquial terms bag of mystery and mystery bag denote a sausage, a saveloy. The British lexicographer John Stephen Farmer (1854-1916) gave the following explanations in Slang and its Analogues Past and Present ([London]: Printed for subscribers only, 1890): Bags of mystery (common).—Sausages and saveloys are so called—from the often mysterious character of their compounds. Presumably composed […]
Read MoreThe phrase money for old rope has various meanings: a profitable return for little or no trouble; a very easy job; a person or thing easy to profit from or to beat. The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I have found is from Driffield Coursing Club. “Peter Delmas” in the genial crowd, published in The Daily Mail (Hull, Yorkshire, England) […]
Read MoreThe English adjective imbecile is, via French, from the Latin imbecillus, or imbecillis, meaning weak, feeble, in body or mind. In his etymological encyclopaedia Originum sive Etymologiarum (The Origins or Etymologies), the Spanish archbishop and Doctor of the Church St Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636) wrote that the literal meaning of the Latin adjective is quasi sine baculo, as though (walking) without a supporting staff. The […]
Read MoreThe expression to amputate one’s mahogany is a jocular elaboration on to cut one’s stick, which means to take one’s departure. The following definition is from A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words (2nd edition – 1860), by the English publisher and author John Camden Hotten (1832-1873): Cut one’s stick, to be off […]
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