‘to use one’s loaf’ (‘to use one’s common sense’)

19th March 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

First recorded in The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, Yorkshire) of Friday 26 August 1938, the phrase ‘to use one’s loaf’ means ‘to use one’s common sense’. Here, ‘loaf’, a shortening of ‘loaf of bread’, is rhyming slang for ‘head’.

How a life jacket came to be named after Mae West.

9th March 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

From the name of the American film actress Mae West, renowned for her generous bust, the informal noun ‘Mae West’, attested in 1940, denotes an inflatable life jacket, originally as issued to Royal Air Force aviators during World War II.

‘all behind, like a cow’s tail’ (left behind, late)

4th March 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

The phrase ‘all behind, like a cow’s tail’ and its variants mean ‘left behind’ and ‘late in accomplishing a task’. They appeared in print in the mid-19th century in the USA, Australia and Britain.

Anglo-Indian origin of ‘loot’ (goods stolen in war)

16th February 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

UK, early 19th century—private property taken from an enemy in war—originally an Anglo-Indian noun, from Hindi ‘lūṭ’, from Sanskrit ‘luṇṭh-‘, ‘to rob’—came to be also used as slang for ‘money’ and to also denote ‘wedding presents’

origin of the British-English word ‘bonkers’

11th February 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

British English, first recorded, apparently as army slang, in 1945—probably from ‘bonk’ (= a blow on the head) and the suffix ‘-ers’ as in ‘ravers’ (from ‘raving mad’) and ‘starkers’ (from ‘stark mad’)

‘to go to Peg Trantum’s’ (to go to one’s death)

8th February 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

First recorded in 1694, ‘Peg Tantrum’ was chiefly used in the phrase ‘to go to Peg Trantum’s’, meaning ‘to go to one’s death’. This word is perhaps from ‘Peg’, rhyming form of ‘Meg’, pet form of the female forenames ‘Margery’ and ‘Margaret’, and from ‘tantrum’.

‘couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery’

13th January 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

In British slang, the noun ‘piss-up’ denotes ‘a heavy drinking bout’, and the phrase ‘couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery’ and variants mean ‘is’, or ‘are’, or ‘am’, ‘incapable of organising the simplest event, task, etc.’—phrase first recorded in 1980.

origin of ‘fat cat’ (wealthy and powerful person)

12th January 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Of American-English origin, the slang term fat cat denotes a wealthy, influential person, especially one who is a heavy contributor to a political party or campaign. The earliest occurrence that I have found is from an article published in The Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) of 1 November 1925.

from the trenches of WWI: ‘cootie’ (‘body louse’)

3rd January 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

from army use on the Western Front during World War One: ‘cootie’, ‘body louse’, ‘cooty’, ‘infested with lice’, ‘coot’, ‘louse’, probably ultimately refer to the aquatic bird called ‘coot’, reputed to be lice-infested

British, U.S. and French soldiers’ slang during WWI

2nd January 2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

some characteristic slang creations of the British, U.S. and French soldiers during World War One, as recorded in ‘Trench Talk’, published in Everybody’s Magazine (New York) of January 1918