UK, 1839—jocular variant of ‘penny-a-liner’ (i.e., a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line, a person who produced mediocre journalistic work) with the implication that such journalists fabricated falsehoods
mid-19th century—a small bonnet standing far back on the head, which was then fashionable—also occasionally in the extended form ‘kiss-me-quick, mother’s coming’
to live in excessively close proximity or interdependence—1762: “the company squeezed themselves into one another’s pockets” in a letter by Horace Walpole
UK, 1904—refers to the action of making someone stop chattering—from the colloquial imperative phrase ‘cut the cackle (and come to the horses)’, meaning: stop talking (and get to the heart of the matter)
‘stop talking (and get to the heart of the matter)’—UK, 1878—said to have been coined by circus proprietor Andrew Ducrow when apostrophising equestrian performers