“ad fontes!”
This proverb means that promises and plans must be put into action, otherwise they are useless. The early versions did not refer to hell or the road to hell being paved, but to hell being full of good desires, intentions, meanings, etc.
Read MoreUSA, 1920: ‘wetback’: an illegal immigrant who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico to the USA—by extension: any illegal immigrant who entered a foreign country by swimming—Mexico and USA, 1994: ‘espaldas secas’, i.e., ‘dry backs’: the U.S. citizens working in Mexico as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement
Read MoreUK, 1685—a person who is friendly only when it is easy or convenient to be so, whose friendship cannot be relied on in times of difficulty
Read Moretwo people, especially lovers, should be left alone together—UK, 1829 as ‘two is company, three none’—but notion already proverbial in 1678
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possibly from ‘cloak and sword’, from Spanish ‘(comedia) de capa y espada’, a type of dramas in which the main characters wore cloaks and swords or daggers
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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Executioner argues with King about cutting off Cheshire Cat’s head – illustration by John Tenniel (1820-1914) for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from. The phrase a cat may look at a king means even a person of low […]
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