meaning and origin of ‘to give somebody the (screaming) (h)abdabs’
UK, 1942—fanciful word ‘(h)abdabs’: nervous anxiety or irritation—apparently originated in Royal Air Force slang during WWII
Read MoreTag: slang
the authentic origin of the phrase ‘(as) bold as brass’
UK, 1789—aided by alliteration, arose from a long-established figurative use of ‘brass’, sometimes in association with ‘bold’
Read Moremeanings and origin of the phrase ‘all dressed up with nowhere to go’
USA, 1910—originated as a line in the musical comedy The Girl of My Dreams—allegedly coined by music-hall artist Nita Allen
Read Moreorigin of ‘to drop a clanger’ (to make an absurd or embarrassing blunder)
British Army slang, 1945—the image is of something dropping with a clang, i.e. with a loud resonant ringing sound.
Read Moreorigin of ‘Bananaland’, colloquial Australian name for Queensland
Australia, 1880—from the fact that bananas grow in abundance in Queensland (a state comprising the north-eastern part of Australia)
Read Morethe theatrical origin of the phrase ‘top banana’
USA, 1947—the leading comic in a burlesque entertainment—also ‘first banana’, in contrast to ‘second banana’ and ‘third banana’
Read Moreorigin of ‘to [verb] the living daylights out of somebody’
The adjective ‘living’ is an intensifier, and ‘daylights’ is an 18th-century slang term for ‘eyes’ chiefly used in contexts of physical violence or threats.
Read Morethe authentic origin of ‘the ghost walks’
payday—UK, 1831, theatrical slang—from ‘Hamlet’, where Horatio asks the Ghost if he walks because he has “hoorded treasure in the wombe of earth”
Read Moremeaning, origin & history of ‘bob’s your uncle’
meaning: everything is or will turn out all right—Scotland, 1891—‘bob’ probably related to the adjectives ‘bob’ and ‘bobbish’, meaning ‘well, in good health and spirits’
Read Moremeanings and origin of ‘dead-cat bounce’
from the notion that even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from a sufficient height—UK, 1981: a rapid fall in the stock market with hardly any reaction—USA, 1985: a rapid but short-lived recovery in the stock market after a sharp fall—hence, 1992: any spurious success
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