‘not worth a pudding’: meaning and early occurrences
1546—of little or no worth—here, ‘pudding’ refers to a sausage-like mass of seasoned minced meat, oatmeal, etc., stuffed into a prepared skin and boiled
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‘not a word of the pudding’: meaning and early occurrences
1666—a warning or exhortation to say nothing about a particular matter—of unknown origin—may allude to the mysterious nature of pudding stuffing
Read More‘to cut a long story short’: meaning and early occurrences
also, and originally (1729), ‘to make a long story short’: to be brief or concise—this phrase is typically used as a sentence adverbial, with the sense: in short, in summary, briefly
Read More‘to walk the plank’: meanings and origin
late 18th century, in the context of piracy: to walk along a plank placed over the side of a ship until one falls into the sea—hence, figuratively, early 19th century: to be forced to resign from one’s office or position
Read More‘O’Grady says’: meaning and origin
a game in which players must obey a leader’s instructions if, but only if, they are prefaced with the words ‘O’Grady says’—UK, 1917—game invented during World War One as a play-way for conducting physical exercises and drill in the British Army
Read MoreHow the French Revolution influenced the English phrase ‘feet of clay’
the earliest occurrences of ‘feet of clay’, used without explicit reference to the Bible, date from the French Revolution (1789-1799) and translate French ‘pieds d’argile’
Read More‘to have the game by the throat’: meaning and origin
to be in control of a situation; to be in a dominant position—USA, 1899—originally (USA, 1867) used in reference to hunting game animals
Read More‘heifer-dust’: meaning, origin and early occurrences
nonsense, rubbish—USA, first decade of the 20th century—probably a euphemism for the noun ‘bullshit’, with the noun ‘dust’ used in the sense of ‘rubbish’, ‘garbage’
Read MoreAustralian uses of ‘two-bob watch’
1910: a cheap and common watch—hence (from 1922 onwards) used in various phrases referring to silliness, reliability/unreliability, erraticism, cheapness, funniness
Read MoreAustralian uses of ‘heifer-paddock’
literally (1845): an enclosure in which calves are isolated from their mothers until weaned—figuratively, humorously and offensively (1885): a girls’ boarding-school—similar to the use of ‘cow’ to derogatorily designate a girl or woman
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