‘chain-smoker’: meaning and origin
1885—a person who smokes continually, typically by lighting a cigarette from the stub of the last one smoked—loan translation from German ‘Kettenraucher’—originally referred to Otto von Bismarck
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‘different strokes for different folks’: meaning and origin
African-American, 1966—different things please or satisfy different people—‘stroke’ denotes a comforting gesture of approval or congratulation, and, by extension, a flattering or friendly remark
Read Morenotes on the phrase ‘sing ’em muck’
1928 in Clara Butt: Her Life-Story, by H. W. Ponder—“Sing ’em muck! It’s all they can understand!”: advice given by Australian soprano Nellie Melba to English contralto Clara Butt, who was about to undertake a tour of Australia
Read More‘to be able to talk under water (under wet cement/concrete)’
Australia—to have the gift of the gab—‘to be able to talk under water’ (1951)—‘to be able to talk under wet cement’ (1978)—‘to be able to talk under wet concrete’ (1980)
Read More‘wouldn’t work in an iron lung’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1953—used of an extremely lazy person—refers to the artificial respirator that kept polio patients alive by “breathing” for them
Read More‘the politics of the warm inner glow’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1981—the ideology of the Australian Labor Party’s left wing, “for whom the ultimate test of a policy is the feeling of personal virtuousness to be derived from its espousal”—Labor politician James McClelland claimed to have coined this phrase
Read More‘better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick’
British and Irish English, 1833—denotes qualified pleasure—also: ‘to give [someone] a poke in the eye (with a — stick)’, meaning to deprecate [someone]—from ‘a poke in the eye’, denoting something undesirable
Read More‘Malabar Hilton’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia, 1982—a familiar name given to the Long Bay Correctional Complex, a correctional facility located in Malabar, Sydney, New South Wales
Read More‘a Jap on Anzac Day’: meanings and origin
Australia, 1973—used of anything that is absolutely unacceptable, and of any disagreeable situation or experience—‘Jap’: derogatory shortening of ‘Japanese’—Anzac Day: commemoration of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915
Read More‘to go ballistic’: meanings and origin
1980s—to become wildly or explosively angry; to become highly excited or enthusiastic; to intensify rapidly and especially alarmingly—refers to the failure of a guided missile’s guidance system (1966)
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