‘dad-dancing’: meaning and origin

18th Aug 2021.Reading time 6 minutes.

UK, 1996—an awkward, unfashionable or unrestrained style of dancing to pop music, as characteristically performed by middle-aged or older men

‘Bloomsday’: meanings and origin

22nd Jul 2021.Reading time 14 minutes.

the 16th of June 1904; also the 16th of June of any year, on which celebrations take place, especially in Ireland, to mark the anniversary of the events in Ulysses (1922), by the Irish author James Joyce—Leopold Bloom is one of the central characters in Ulysses, in which all the action takes place on one day, the 16th of June 1904

‘London to a brick’: meanings and origin

3rd Jun 2021.Reading time 12 minutes.

Australia, 1909—(horseracing) a bet is sure to pay off; (in extended use) something is a very strong probability—from the notion that the punter is so confident of winning the bet that he is prepared to put the whole city of London on a horse to win a brick, i.e., a ten-pound note

‘to go ballistic’: meanings and origin

7th Feb 2021.Reading time 10 minutes.

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)

‘as Australian as meat pie’: meaning and origin

4th Jan 2021.Reading time 7 minutes.

Australia, 1966—typically Australian in character—alteration of the phrase ‘as American as apple pie’, with reference to the prominence of meat pie in Australian diet

‘the Volvo set’: meaning and early occurrences

8th Nov 2020.Reading time 16 minutes.

USA, 1976—Australia, 1982—trendy middle- to upper-middle-class people, who are often conservationists, and who, in some cases, have moved from cities and urban areas into country areas

‘to do a Melba’ | ‘to do a Dame Nellie’: meanings and origin

24th Sep 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Australia, 1946—to return to one’s profession after retirement; of a singer or other performer: to make frequent comebacks—from the repeated farewell performances given by Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba

origin of ‘I’ve got the time if you’ve got the inclination’

7th Aug 2020.Reading time 8 minutes.

Seems to have originated in a joke, first recorded in 1955, in which the Tower of London says to the Leaning Tower of Pisa: “I’ve got the time and you’ve got the inclination.”