“ad fontes!”
‘baloney’ or ‘boloney’: ‘humbug’ and ‘nonsense’—USA, 1922—American-English alteration of ‘bologna (sausage)’, a large smoked sausage made of seasoned mixed meats, from the name of Bologna, a city in northern Italy, where these sausages were first made
Read More‘queen’s’, or ‘king’s’, ‘cushion’: a seat made by two people who cross arms and hold each other’s hands to form a support for another person—Scotland and northern England, 19th century
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 More19th century—The adverb ‘hands down’ originated in horse racing: a jockey who is winning comfortably is able to lower his hands and relax his hold on the reins.
Read Moresupposedly an allusion to the preparation of fabric to be worked on: once the shapes have been cut out, the tailor still has a lot of sewing to do
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early 19th century—initialism from French ‘répondez s’il vous plaît’ (‘respond if you please’), used at the end of invitations to request a response
Read Moreorigin: a rower who does not pull the oar with a force appropriate to his or her weight fails to make the contribution expected by the rest of the crew
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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
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originally, at Cambridge University: oversized wooden spoon given to the candidate coming last in the mathematical tripos (BA-degree final honours examination)
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‘take the cake’ (US, 1839) alludes probably to cake as the prize in a contest, but maybe not to cakewalk—‘take the biscuit’ (US, 1879) used in British English
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word histories 