‘from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’: meaning and origin
wealth gained in one generation of a family will be lost by the third generation—USA, 1874—refers to a hard-working man wearing a shirt with nothing over it
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‘from clogs to clogs in three generations’: meaning and origin
wealth gained in one generation of a family will be lost by the third generation—UK, 1842, as “there is but one generation in Lancashire between clog and clog”—refers to clogs being typically worn by factory workers
Read More‘sword of Damocles’: meaning and origin
1625—an imminent danger—alludes to Damocles, a courtier of ancient Syracuse, who was given a lesson in the perils to a ruler’s life when forced to sit under a naked sword hanging by a single hair
Read More‘empleomania’: meaning and origin
mania for holding public office—USA, 1829—a borrowing from Spanish ‘empleomanía’, from ‘empleo’ (i.e., ‘employment’) and the suffix ‘‑manía’ (i.e., ‘-mania’)
Read More‘information fatigue’: meaning and early occurrences
1988, Australia & USA—apathy, indifference or mental exhaustion arising from exposure to too much information—especially stress induced by the attempt to assimilate excessive amounts of information from the media, the Internet or at work
Read More‘blandification’: meaning and origin
USA, 1969—the action or process of becoming or being made plain, ordinary, uninteresting or insipid—from the adjective ‘bland’ and the suffix ‘‑ification’, forming nouns of action
Read More‘annus horribilis’: meaning and origin
UK, 1867—a disastrous or particularly unpleasant year—Latin, literally ‘a horrible year’—coined after Latin ‘annus mirabilis’, literally ‘an extraordinary year’
Read More‘to get a guernsey’: meanings and origin
Australia, 1918—to get selected for a task, to gain recognition or approval, to succeed—the image is of getting selected in a sporting team (‘guernsey’: a shirt worn by soccer or rugby players)
Read Morethe noun ‘pig tracks’ in U.S. phrases
in the phrases ‘(as) regular as pig tracks’ (1853) and ‘(as) common as pig tracks’ (1854), the plural noun ‘pig tracks’ is an intensifier—Southern United States
Read More‘Quatorze Juillet’: meaning and origin
USA, 1882—the fourteenth of July, the national holiday of the French republic, commemorating the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789—also shortened to ‘Quatorze’ (1898)
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