“ad fontes!”
‘to take the Fifth’: to decline to reveal one’s own secrets—from ‘to take the Fifth Amendment’: to appeal to Article V of the original amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “No person […] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
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US, 1938—‘soap’: from early sponsors of such radio serials, often soap manufacturers—‘opera’: from the scale of dramatic incident that happens in these programs
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UK, 1972—‘XXXX’: a euphemistic substitute for a four-letter swear word, usually ‘fuck’—it did not originally refer to the Australian lager Castlemaine XXXX
Read Morefrom ‘Don’t Bogart That Joint’ (1968), song by Fraternity of Man—alludes to the way Humphrey Bogart held a cigarette for long dialogues without smoking it
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both parties involved in a situation or argument are equally responsible for it—USA, 1952—from ‘Takes Two to Tango’ (1952), a song by Hoffman and Manning
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‘the answer to a maiden’s prayer’—primary meaning (USA, 1926): ‘an eligible bachelor’—hence, in extended use, ‘a miracle solution’
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US, 1941—originated in ‘Take It or Leave It’, a radio quiz for a prize of sixty-four dollars—developed to ‘sixty-four thousand dollar question’ as early as 1943
Read Moresomething in its entirety—UK, 2nd half of 20th cent.—the sense of striptease performance involving full nudity was popularised by the 1997 film The Full Monty.
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‘a nod’s as good as a wink (to a blind horse)’ 18th century—acknowledges that a hint or suggestion has been understood without the need of further elaboration
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The phrase ‘to have someone’s guts for garters’, used as a hyperbolical threat, is first recorded in the late 16th century.
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word histories 