meanings and origin of ‘beggar my neighbour’
1734: a card game in which one player tries to win all the cards of the other—1802: refers to an advantage gained by one side at the expense of the other
Read MoreTag: sports & games
history of the phrase ‘(but) some — are more equal than others’
USA—from 1848 onwards in contrast to ‘all men are equal’—now often alludes to ‘but some animals are more equal than others’ in Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945)
Read MoreBritish phrases based on the image of being ‘on toast’
with allusion to food served up on a slice of toast—1877 ‘to have someone on toast’: to have someone at one’s mercy—1886 ‘to be had on toast’: to be cheated
Read Morethe phrase ‘to move the goalposts’—as used in Britain
1924—to unfairly alter the terms of a procedure during its course—also (humorous): the only way for an unsuccessful soccer team to score a goal
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘no joy in Mudville’
USA, 1895—a sense of pervasive and shared disappointment—alludes to the defeat of the baseball team of Mudville, a fictional town in E. L. Thayer’s 1888 poem ‘Casey at the Bat’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘sentence first (and) verdict afterwards’
UK, 1869—used to denounce arbitrariness—alludes to a demand by the Queen of Hearts during the trial of the Knave of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Read Moremeanings and history of the term ‘glass jaw’
USA—1904 (boxing) a weak jaw that is easily broken—1914 (allegorical) preceded by the adjective ‘moral’—1931 (figurative) a vulnerable point—synonym: ‘china chin’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘a bowl of cherries’
USA 1931—a highly enjoyable situation or experience—from ‘life is just a bowl of cherries’ 1928—popularised by song ‘Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries’ 1931
Read Moreorigin of ‘no-go area’: the Troubles in Northern Ireland
1969 as ‘No Go Land’, proper name of a Catholic ghetto in Belfast—1970 as ‘no-go area’, any Northern-Irish area to which entry was restricted or forbidden
Read Moreearly instances of the term ‘pompom girl’
USA, 1913—a female cheerleader who waves a pair of pompoms (large round clusters of brightly coloured streamers) in support of a sports team
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