a hypothesis as to the origin of the phrase ‘a Chinaman’s chance’
USA, 1893—a negligible likelihood—might refer to the fact that the Chinese had little prospect of obtaining reparations for racial discrimination
Read MoreTag: police
the authentic origin of the phrase ‘Elvis has left the building’
first used on 22 September 1956 in order to stop hysterical fans from pursuing Elvis Presley at the end of a concert at Toledo
Read More‘(just) what the doctor ordered’ (exactly what is needed)
‘(just) what the doctor ordered’: very beneficial or desirable under the circumstances—origin: USA, second half of the 19th century
Read Moreorigin of ‘hatchet man’: a hired Chinese assassin
USA—‘hatchet man’ (1874): a hired Chinese assassin using a hatchet or cleaver—‘hatchet work’ (1895): a murder carried out by a hatchet man
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the milk in the coconut’
‘the milk in the coconut’: a puzzling fact or circumstance; alludes to the question of how the milk got into the coconut—of British-English origin (1832), not of American-English origin as stated by the Oxford English Dictionary
Read Moreorigin of ‘to crawl out of the woodwork’
USA, 1930—‘to crawl, or to come, out of the woodwork’: of an unpleasant or unwelcome person or thing, to come out of hiding, to emerge from obscurity; the image is of vermin or insects crawling out of crevices or other hidden places in a building
Read Moreorigin of ‘watershed’ as used about British television
UK, 1962—the time after which programmes unsuitable for children are broadcast on television—from the image of a dividing line between two different sorts of programmes
Read More‘to fall off (the back of) a lorry’ (‘to be stolen’)
UK, 1953, humorous and euphemistic—‘to fall off (the back of) a lorry’: of goods, ‘to be acquired in dubious or unspecified circumstances’, especially ‘to be stolen’—variant with ‘truck’ came into use later in Australian and North American English
Read Moreorigin of ‘bobby’ and ‘peeler’ (‘police officer’)
UK, 1844—‘bobby’: a policeman—from ‘Bobby’, pet form of ‘Robert’, in allusion to Robert Peel, who, as Home Secretary, established the Metropolitan Police in 1829—cf. ‘peeler’ (1816), originally a member of the Peace Preservation Force in Ireland established in 1814 by Robert Peel
Read More‘bag lady’ (whose worldly wealth is in shopping bags)
Of American-English origin, ‘bag lady’, or ‘shopping-bag lady’, denotes a homeless woman, often elderly, who carries her possessions in shopping bags. The earliest instance that I have found is from The Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania) of 19th June 1971.
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