“ad fontes!”
the government or its policies viewed as overprotective or as interfering unduly with personal choice; a state characterised as having such a government—first coined in 1952 by U.S. journalist Dorothy Thompson—recoined in 1965 by British politician Iain Macleod
Read MoreAustralia—to test somebody’s fortitude; to put pressure on somebody—coined in 1983 by Neville Wran, Premier of New South Wales, to characterise the inexperience of Nick Greiner, the newly elected Leader of the Opposition
Read MoreIrish English, 1834—extremely cold, literally (i.e., with reference to low temperatures) and figuratively (i.e., with reference to lack of feeling, of emotion)
Read MoreUSA, 1975—to be naive, ignorant or gullible—the image is of a country person who has just arrived in town on a turnip truck
Read MoreU.S.—used in reference to several muddy rivers, and, occasionally, to other waterbodies—originally (1890 to 1902) used in reference to the Missouri River
Read MoreAustralia, 1930—describes a person who is reluctant, or very slow, to pay for something—the image is of a snake biting the person when they put their hand in their pocket to get at their money
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USA, 1973—a euphemism for a lie—coined on 17th June 1973, during the Watergate scandal, by Ronald Lewis Ziegler, President Richard Nixon’s Press Secretary
Read MoreUK, 1968—British and Australian: expresses indifference towards, or rejection of, a suggestion—from ‘Umpa, Umpa, Stick It Up Your Jumper’, a song recorded in 1935 by The Two Leslies (Leslie Sarony and Leslie Holmes)
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UK and Ireland—the small change that has slipped down between the cushions and the back, or the arms, of a sofa—also used figuratively: public funds that are ‘miraculously’ found; permanent end; wasted money
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conveys derisive self-congratulation for an action that the speaker has done from a sense of duty rather than for pleasure—from a line uttered by Charles Laughton in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII
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word histories 