“ad fontes!”
UK, 1935—a humorous self-contradictory phrase which includes the clichéd phrase ‘to avoid like the plague’ in order to express the necessity of avoiding clichés—as a piece of advice for writers, has itself become a cliché
Read Moremusic characterised by excessive or extravagant riffing—USA, 1975—from ‘riff’ (a short repeated musical phrase) and ‘-orama’ (used to form nouns designating a display, event, etc., of considerable size or expanse)
Read MoreAustralia, 1890: an analysis of the state of the weather at sea—UK, 1926: the BBC-radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
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a charwoman, a cleaning lady—UK, 1940—popularised in 1942 by the charwoman’s name in the BBC radio comedy series ‘It’s That Man Again’
Read Moreconventionally middle-class—UK, 1953—from ‘Mrs Dale’, the name of a conventional middle-class woman in Mrs Dale’s Diary, a BBC radio serial broadcast from 1948 to 1969
Read Moreone is no longer rational or sane—USA, 1983
Read Moreimpressively or shockingly big—a blend of ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’—apparently coined by Welsh novelist Berta Ruck in Wedding March (1938)
Read MoreAustralia, 1969—is used of an ineffectual person—‘choko’ (i.e., ‘chayote’): the cucumber-like fruit of a cucurbitaceous vine (‘Sechium edule’)
Read MoreBritish slang, 1960s—‘to disappear up one’s own arse’: to become self-involved, pretentious or conceited—‘to be up one’s own arse’: to be self-involved, pretentious or conceited
Read Moreyou cannot improve something which is inherently or unalterably unpleasant, or of poor quality—USA, 1977—originally in reference to rock music
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word histories 