‘to know one’s onions’ – ‘c’est mes oignons’
US, 1898: ‘to know one’s onion’ (in the singular), to be very knowledgeable about something — French, 1897: ‘c’est mes oignons’, it’s my own business
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meanings of ‘the answer to a maiden’s prayer’
‘the answer to a maiden’s prayer’—primary meaning (USA, 1926): ‘an eligible bachelor’—hence, in extended use, ‘a miracle solution’
Read Morethe story of the fedora
US, 1883—from the craze generated by ‘Fédora’, an 1882 drama by Victorien Sardou and the name of its heroine, played in early productions by Sarah Bernhardt
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Mother Carey’s chicken’
probably from Latin ‘Mater Cara’ or Italian ‘Madre Cara’, ‘dear mother’, i.e. the Virgin Mary, believed by sailors to send the petrel as a harbinger of storms
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Box and Cox’
from the name of an 1847 farce in which a landlady lets out, unbeknown to them, the same room to two tenants, Box and Cox, the one by day, the other by night
Read Moreorigin of ‘old chestnut’ and of French ‘marronnier’
The term old chestnut denotes a joke, story or subject that has become tedious and uninteresting through constant repetition. Here, the adjective old is simply an intensifier of the noun. The figurative use of chestnut originated in American-English theatrical slang. Diary of a Daly Débutante: being passages from the journal of a member of Augustin Daly’s […]
Read Morean investigation into the origin of ‘blotto’
advertisement for Blotto brothers’ triporteurs Le Jardin des Modes nouvelles – 15th October 1913 The adjective blotto, which means drunk [however, cf. note 1], originated in British military slang during the First World War. It is first recorded in this sense in the chapter Slang in a War Hospital of Observations of an Orderly: […]
Read Moreorigin of ‘flea market’: French ‘marché aux puces’
Marché aux puces à Montreuil – Agence Meurisse – 1928 source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque Nationale de France The term flea market is a calque of French marché aux puces. Both names denote a street market selling second-hand goods. In In Europe (Pusey Press, New York, 1922), the American author George Samuel Dougherty […]
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘to play to the gallery’
the gods at the Comedy Theatre, London, 1949 source: Historic England – The Theatres Trust Via Middle French galerie, the noun gallery, attested in the late 15th century, is from the medieval Latin of Italy galeria, an alteration of medieval Latin galilaea, designating a porch at the entrance of a monastery’s church—hence English […]
Read Morethe authentic history of the phrase ‘cherchez la femme’
The French phrase cherchez la femme, search for the woman, is used to indicate that the key to a problem or mystery is a woman, and that she need only be found for the matter to be solved. It first appeared as a catchphrase used by M. Jackal, a police detective, in Les Mohicans de Paris, […]
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