“ad fontes!”
The colloquial see you later, alligator, which originated in American English, is a catchphrase used on parting. The expected response is in, or after, a while, crocodile. —Cf. also notes on ‘see you later, agitator’. The earliest instance of see you later, alligator that I have found is from Teenagers’ Slang Expressions Are Explained by […]
Read MoreUK, early 19th century—an imaginary street where people in difficulties, now especially financial ones, are supposed to reside—urban counterpart of ‘Dicky’s meadow’
Read More‘Welsh’: used disparagingly by the English to denote inferior things; ‘rabbit’: common dishes were humorously called by the names of superior ones
Read Morefrom Spanish ‘vamos’, ‘let us go’—first recorded as ‘vamos’ in ‘Every Night Book; or, Life after Dark’ (London, 1827), by the English author William Clarke
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to meet with disaster; to be ruined, destroyed or killed—UK, 1941, RAF slang: (of an airman) to be killed—perhaps from ‘to go for a drink (of Burton ale)’
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USA—‘not part of a particular exclusive group’, 1955—‘out of one’s mind’, 1958—‘smashed out of one’s skull’ (= ‘drunk’, 1963)—‘bored out of one’s skull’, 1967
Read Moreearly 19th century—probably a jocular application of ‘forty’ as an indefinite term for a large number—‘wink’ in the sense of ‘a closing of the eyes for sleep’
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UK, 1971, in graffiti—preceded by a proper or common noun in the singular or plural; used to assert the pre-eminence of a specified person or thing
Read MoreWith words denoting some specified deficiency in a desirable or standard quantity of something, ‘short of a ——’ means ‘mentally deficient’, ‘slightly crazy’.
Read MoreUS, 1898: ‘to know one’s onion’ (in the singular), to be very knowledgeable about something — French, 1897: ‘c’est mes oignons’, it’s my own business
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