meaning and origin of the phrase ‘the silly season’
coined in The Saturday Review (London, 13 July 1861) about the shortage of important news in autumn in The Times of London
Read MoreTag: science
a personal view on the ‘animal-friendly’ phrases suggested by PETA
Fundamentally, I object to the will of any group to artificially modify language in order to impose their world view.
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Matthew effect’ and of ‘Matthew principle’
USA, 1960s—those who already have will receive more—refers to gospel of Matthew—coined by sociologist Robert King Merton
Read Morepejorative origin of ‘Nimby’ (opposition to a project in one’s vicinity)
USA, 1979—acronym from ‘not in my back yard’—first used in ‘the Nimby syndrome’ with reference to the disposal of nuclear waste
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the milk in the coconut’
‘the milk in the coconut’: a puzzling fact or circumstance; alludes to the question of how the milk got into the coconut—of British-English origin (1832), not of American-English origin as stated by the Oxford English Dictionary
Read Moreorigin and appearance of ‘ailurophile’ (cat lover)
USA, 1914—‘ailurophile’: a cat lover—‘ailurophobe’: opposite sense—based on ancient Greek ‘aílouros’, ‘cat’, perhaps from ‘aiόlos’, ‘swift’, and ‘ourá’, ‘tail’, the cat being perhaps so called on account of the swift movement to and fro of its tail
Read Morean American phrase for a British trait: ‘a stiff upper lip’
‘a stiff upper lip’: a quality of uncomplaining stoicism—now understood as referring to what is believed to be a quintessentially British trait, the repression of emotion, but originated in fact in North America (USA, 1811)
Read More‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’
denotes a situation in which the alternatives are considered equivalent—first recorded, as ‘six of the one and half a dozen of the other’, on 24th April 1790 in the journal of Ralph Clark, a British naval officer—synonym: ‘(as) broad as long’
Read Morethe curious history of ‘Quorn’ (meat substitute)
The name ‘Quorn’ was first registered as a trademark—for certain edible products other than meat substitutes—by the Quorn Specialities Company of Leicester, England, in 1914. The meat substitute was subsequently developed by the successors of this company.
Read MoreHow sports gave ‘rocket science’ its figurative meaning.
The literal meaning of ‘rocket science’ (USA, 1930) is the science of rockets and rocket propulsion—in the 1980s, in connexion with sports, it came to be used ironically as a generic term for anything requiring a high level of intelligence or expertise.
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