‘squeeze pidgin’: meaning and origin
China, 1849—extortion—from ‘squeeze’, denoting a forced exaction or impost made by a Chinese official or servant, and ‘pidgin’ in its original sense of business
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‘bullamacow’: meanings and origin
islands of the South Pacific, 1881—cattle, beef, and, by extension, meat of any kind and tinned meat—a combination of the nouns ‘bull’ and ‘cow’
Read MorePidgin-English origin of ‘long time no see’
The colloquial phrase ‘long time no see’, which first appeared in the USA in the 1890s, is used as a greeting meaning ‘it is a long time since we last saw each other’. It originated in Chinese Pidgin English, after Chinese ‘hǎojiǔ bú jiàn’, or ‘hǎojĭu méi jiàn’.
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