‘curtain-twitching’ | ‘curtain-twitcher’
used of a person who likes to observe other people’s activities from his or her window, in a furtive and prying manner—UK and Ireland, 1940
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‘daylight robbery’: meanings and early occurrences
UK, 1804—literal meaning: a robbery committed during daylight hours, often characterised as particularly conspicuous or risky—figurative meaning: blatant and unfair overcharging or swindling
Read More‘panda’ (as applied to a police patrol car)
UK, 1966—a police patrol car having a broad white stripe painted on a dark background—alludes to the black-and-white fur of the giant panda
Read More‘granny-bashing’ | ‘granny-battering’: meanings and origin
UK, 1972—the nouns ‘granny-bashing’ and ‘granny-battering’ denote: a) the assault or mugging of elderly persons; b) abuse of an elderly member of one’s family, especially one’s grandmother
Read More‘winedot’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1933—an addict of cheap wine or/and of methylated spirits—apparently coined jocularly after ‘Wyandotte’, denoting a domestic chicken of a medium-sized American breed
Read More‘the big smoke’: meanings and origins
Australian English, 1848: any urban area (said to be of Aboriginal origin)—Irish and British English, 1862: Dublin and London—alludes to smoke as characteristic of an urban area
Read Morean Australian use of ‘grasshopper’
1950—‘grasshopper’ and its shortened form ‘grassy’, typically used in the plural, denote a tourist, especially a visitor to Canberra—the image is that a coachload of tourists is similar to a swarm of grasshoppers
Read More‘Mr. Plod’: meaning and origin
UK, 1963—‘Mr. Plod’, also ‘P.C. Plod’, ‘Plod’: a humorous or mildly derogatory appellation for a policeman or for the police—alludes to ‘Mr. Plod’, the name of the policeman in stories by the English author of children’s fiction Enid Blyton
Read More‘brown bomber’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1950—a traffic warden in the state of New South Wales—‘brown’ probably refers to the colour of those traffic wardens’ uniform—‘bomber’ may refer to the fact that many of those traffic wardens were originally war veterans; or perhaps to the Australian-English use of the noun ‘bomb’ for an old car
Read MoreSpanish ‘costa’ in invented place names
In reference to the names of various stretches of the Spanish Mediterranean coast which are popular with British holidaymakers, the Spanish noun ‘costa’ is used humorously as the first element in various invented place names.
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