‘gyppy tummy’: meaning and origin
diarrhoea suffered by travellers, especially in Egypt—1915, British Army—the word ‘gyppy’ is from ‘gyp’ in ‘Egyptian’, and the suffix ‘-y’, used to form familiar diminutives
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‘to shoot the cat’: meaning (and origin?)
to vomit, especially from drunkenness—slang, obsolete—1609 as ‘to jerk the cat’—perhaps alludes to the fact that cats are prone to vomit—cf. also the obsolete French verb ‘renarder’, to vomit, from the noun ‘renard’, denoting a fox
Read More‘couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons’: meaning and origin
used of a person who is incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.—Australian politics, 1945, as a comment on Robert Gordon Menzies, generally ascribed to William Morris Hughes
Read More‘charity dame’ | ‘charity moll’: meaning and origin
Australia—‘charity dame’ 1949—‘charity moll’ 1962—an amateur prostitute who charges less than the usual rate—from ‘Moll’, pet form of the female forename ‘Mary’, the noun ‘moll’ has long been used to designate a prostitute
Read More‘(as) mad as a (cut) snake’: meaning and origin
out of one’s mind, extremely annoyed—Australia, 1900; New Zealand, 1907—originally as ‘(as) mad as a snake’, ‘(as) mad as snakes’ and variants—later as ‘(as) mad as a cut snake’
Read More‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’: meaning and origin
USA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’
Read More‘to sweat the small stuff’: meaning and origin
USA, 1957, teenagers’ slang—to worry about trivial, insignificant matters—usually as ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’, said as reproof or consolation
Read Morenotes on ‘backwards, the way Molly went to church’
means ‘backwards’, also ‘reluctantly’—USA, 1865—of unknown origin—allegedly borrowed from Irish English, but nothing seems to support this allegation
Read More‘a car crash in slow motion’: meaning and origin
a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a ghoulish fascination for observers—UK, 1980, as ‘like viewing a car crash in slow motion’—USA, 1991, used without ‘like’ by George Colony, president of Forrester Research
Read More‘he must have killed a Chinaman’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1885; New Zealand, 1894—indicates that a person is suffering from bad luck—the implication is that this bad luck is punishment for a crime committed by the person
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