a male-chauvinistic phrase: ‘barefoot(ed) and pregnant’
USA, 1938—male-chauvinistic phrase meaning that the place of women is in the home and that their role is to bear children—also ‘pregnant and barefoot(ed)’
Read MoreTag: phrases
‘take me to your leader’: meaning and early occurrences
the demand that an extraterrestrial makes to the first human being or animal it encounters after alighting from its flying saucer—USA, 1956—from a cliché in science-fiction stories
Read More‘home, James (and don’t spare the horses)’: meaning and early occurrences
used as a humorous exhortation to a driver (‘James’: generic posh Christian name)—USA—shorter form: late 19th century—extended form: 1911
Read More‘storm on Channel—Continent isolated’: meaning and early occurrences
satirical of British insularity (describes Continental Europe as being cut off from the British Isles)—UK 1930, USA 1931—allegedly originated in a newspaper headline, but this is probably apocryphal
Read More‘teeth like stars’, i.e., false teeth
USA, 1893—the phrase ‘teeth like stars’ is applied to false teeth, the image being that they ‘come out’ at night
Read More‘to tap the Admiral’: meaning and early occurrences
applied to someone who will drink anything—UK, 1790—from the tale of the sailor(s) who stole spirits from the cask in which a dead Admiral was being preserved for interment in England
Read More‘to talk a glass eye to sleep’: meanings and early occurrences
applied either to a wearisome talker or to a persuasive talker—first occurs in the latter sense and in connection with boxing: Australia 1952, UK 1954
Read More‘stop the world, I want to get off’: meaning and early occurrences
I’m tired of life (but intended serio-ironically, not in genuine despair)—USA 1951, UK 1956—popularised by ‘Stop the World—I Want to Get Off’, a 1961 British musical
Read More‘it’s raining in London’: meaning and origin
a jibe at a man wearing trousers with turn-ups—USA, 1885—from an anecdote about a man who was affecting the manners and eccentricities of upper-class English people
Read More‘Richard’s himself again’: meaning and origin
indicates that a person has returned to normal after an illness or similar episode—from The Tragical History of King Richard III (1700), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III by Colley Cibber
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