meaning and origin of ‘to follow the man from Cook’s’
UK, 1899—to comply with someone else’s option—title of a song from musical comedy ‘A Runaway Girl’ (1898) with reference to travel agency Thomas Cook and Son
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meaning and origin of ‘that’s the way the mop flops’
that’s the way the situation is, and it must be accepted, however undesirable—1955, US teenagers’ slang—partially based on identical sounds in ‘mop’ and ‘flop’
Read Morehistory of ‘that’s the stuff to give ’em/to give the troops’
First World War military slang—extended forms of ‘that’s the stuff’—used in approval of what has just been done or said, or to mean ‘that is what is needed’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire’
‘upstairs to bed’—UK, 1923: title of a song by Nixon Grey—‘Bedfordshire’ jocular extension of ‘bed’ (1665)—‘the wooden hill’ metaphor for ‘the stairs’ (1856)
Read Morehistory of ‘come up and see my etchings’
USA, 1935—used as an invitation to sexual dalliance—in 1937, William Hays’s censorship office apparently banned it in cinema films
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘booked any good Reds lately?’
USA, 1941—jocular alteration of the conversational gambit ‘read any good books lately?’ with reference to the investigations into alleged Communist activity
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘put that in your pipe and smoke it’
accept that fact if you can—1820: Irish English and associated with the obsolete figurative sense ‘to consider’ of the verb ‘smoke’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘every picture tells a story’
used of images suggestive of real or imaginary events—UK and USA early 1900s: popularised by its use as an advertising slogan for Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills
Read More‘mushroom treatment: kept in the dark and fed bullshit’
American English, 1965—signification: to be kept in a state of ignorance and told nonsense—in use a few years later in Australian English and British English
Read More‘Is a bear Catholic?’ | ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’
USA, 1984—used to indicate that something is blatantly obvious—humorously from ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ and ‘Does a bear shit in the woods?’
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