‘you can’t polish a turd’: meaning and origin
you 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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‘skateboarding duck’: meaning and origin
UK—a trifling, whimsical news item, especially one that is used as a light-note ending to a television or radio news broadcast—from a short film about a pet duck, first broadcast on the BBC on 24 May 1978
Read More‘jean-age’, ‘jean-ager’ and jean-aged’: meaning and origin
refer to the teenage years regarded as an age at which jeans are often worn—USA, from 1946 onwards—punningly after, respectively, ‘teenage’, ‘teenager’ and ‘teenaged’
Read More‘Kleenex music’: meanings and origin
1962: a type of popular music that is rapidly discarded—also, 1967: Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, regarded as a lachrymose piece of music by Igor Stravinsky—‘Kleenex’: a proprietary name for a soft, disposable paper tissue
Read More‘not on your nelly’: meaning and origin
‘not under any circumstances’—Royal Air Force slang, 1942—short for ‘not on your Nelly Duff’, i.e., ‘not on your life’, ‘Nelly Duff’ being rhyming slang for ‘puff’ as used colloquially in the sense of ‘life’
Read More‘talkaholic’: meaning and origin
USA, 1954: a person who talks excessively—USA, 1964: a person who is addicted to talk radio—from ‘talk’ and the suffix ‘‑aholic’, forming nouns designating a person who is addicted to the thing, activity, etc., expressed by the first element
Read More‘Black-Eye Friday’: meaning and origin
UK & Ireland, 2005—the last Friday before Christmas—refers to the high number of fights caused by revellers on that day
Read More‘to piss in someone’s pocket’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1953—to flatter someone or to (seek to) ingratiate oneself with someone, to curry favour with someone—cf. 19th-century British phrase ‘to piss down someone’s back’ (to flatter someone)
Read More‘cliffhanger’: meanings, origin and early occurrences
a suspenseful ending to an episode of a serial; the serial itself—USA, early 1930s—originally referred to serials which ended episodes with their protagonists literally hanging from cliffs, or in similarly dangerous situations
Read More‘to hang someone out to dry’: meaning and origin
to put someone in a difficult, vulnerable or compromising situation, especially by exposing them to blame—USA, 1945, sports—the image is of suspending wet washing in the open so that it can dry
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