“ad fontes!”
In Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the grim proletarian phrase ‘churchyard luck’ denoted the ‘good fortune’ which the parents of a large, poor family experienced by the death of one or more of their children.
Read MoreUK and Ireland—with reference to the fact that Horatio Nelson was blinded in one eye—(1922) ‘until/when Nelson gets his eye back’ is used of a very long time in the future—(1933) the metaphor of Nelson getting his eye back is used of a very small chance of success
Read MoreUK and USA, 1889—used of anything that is speciously high-class in appearance, but is commonplace in reality—‘Queen Anne’ means ‘beautiful’, as opposed to ‘Mary Ann’, meaning ‘vile’; ‘low’; ‘mean’
Read Moreinterwar period—Liverpudlian dockers—three days at work and three days on the dole—‘hook’ refers to the dockers’ tool, ‘book’ refers to the unemployment register
Read MoreUK, 1980—denotes someone or something that is unwelcome, unpopular, etc.—first recorded in a remark by the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, but perhaps originated in Royal-Navy slang
Read MoreUK, 1877—humorous: a holiday or period of leisure spent drinking alcoholic liquor—blend of the nouns ‘alcohol’ and ‘holiday’—has, in the course of time, been coined on separate occasions by various persons, independently from one another
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UK, 1920 (‘queue-jumper’)—literally: to push forward out of turn in a queue—figuratively: to obtain unfair priority over others—especially used since the 1930s in relation to compulsory queueing schemes implemented by public-transport authorities
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UK, 1997—the title given to the official resident cat of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 10 Downing Street, London—‘mouser’, first recorded circa 1440, denotes an animal that catches mice
Read Morea small component of a much larger structure, system or process; an insignificant individual within a large population or community—commonly associated with ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, the title of a three-part composition by the British band Pink Floyd in their 1979 rock opera ‘The Wall’, but has been used since 1867
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UK, 1816—a meaningless bantering phrase—originated in a print published in June, satirising the fact that a bill on additional taxation on soap had been brought in unobtrusively in May by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
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word histories 